We Must Strengthen Polices to Prevent Sexual Violence on College Campuses

By Sophia Giberson, JWI Intern

On January 22nd Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senator Michael Crapo (R-ID) introduced S. 47, a bill in the Senate that would reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, and Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-WI) and Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) introduced H.R. 11, an identical  bill in the House. VAWA was first passed in 1994 to protect victims of dating violence, sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking. Due to the prevalence of domestic violence and sexual assault, this legislation should be a priority in the 113^th Congress. Violence against women is widespread among women of all ages throughout the United States. According to a recent survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 5 women will be raped or sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Many blame this high rate of sexual assault on the victim, which leaves the victim embarrassed, ashamed, and fearful of the outside world.

My second year of college a close friend confided in me a story that changed her life forever. It was her second week of school and she was working closely with the baseball team as she was always interested in sports and staying active. One day after practice, she and friend decided to go to a party and meet up with some of the baseball players to get to know more people on campus. After having one drink, she found herself on the ground of a parking lot being raped by the two men. She was sexually abused by men she thought she trusted. After the incident, she fell into a deep depression, and was blamed by her friends for having too much to drink, when in fact she had barely consumed any alcohol.

This traumatic and life-threatening experience led her to become a driven social activist for preventing violence against women and girls. After suffering through the violent act of rape, she sought to prevent girls from experiencing what had happened to her by giving workshops and is now working for an organization dedicated to preventing human trafficking.

The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act, which is included in  the VAWA reauthorization bills, seeks to address violence women face on college campuses. The Campus SaVE Act requires that incidents of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking be disclosed in annual campus crime statistic reports, expanding what campuses currently need to make public In addition, the act improves campus support for those who experience sexual violence.

The act of rape is intolerable and we must do all we can to prevent it from happening to women of all ages. My friend’s story is all too common. Men and women on college campuses should be educated about domestic and sexual violence and victims need basic protections. Congress should pass the Violence Against Women Act without further delay.

Take Action! Urge Your Senators to Co-sponsor VAWA Today!

Reforming Sexual Assault Policies on College Campuses

By Chelsea Feuchs

In the last few weeks, many stories have come to light regarding sexual assault on college campuses and inadequate administrative responses.  Particularly shocking to many readers are the names of the prestigious universities accused of not supporting survivors and not complying with Title IX regulations.

Amherst College handled a case brought to them with enough insensitivity to cause a lawsuit, not to mention a national scandal.  A recent article published by Women’s eNews brought attention to the exceedingly high amount of evidence and proof of guilt required at schools such as Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Virginia. When our most prestigious institutions cannot handle cases of sexual assault with competence and care, it rightfully sparks fear in prospective students, their parents, and women across the country that lose faith in their ability to seek out help and justice when wronged.

As a college student at an Ivy League school myself, I have observed the complete ineptitude of an administration too worried about its image and its funds to properly handle cases of sexual assault.  First, information about students’ rights regarding rape is often difficult to find. One must sort through pages of information online to find her Title IX rights, let alone the number of a professional to call and confidentiality policies.

Psychological services are often under-funded and under-used and many health service centers do not perform rape kits.  Survivors who come forward are encouraged to handle their cases in house, being told that pursuing a state court case is too much of a hassle if one intends to keep up her studies.  Dealing with cases internally means that the harshest possible punishment for a convicted rapist is expulsion, and even this outcome is rare.

Prosecuting cases of sexual assault within a university setting leads to an entanglement and interests that almost always leaves a survivor underserved by the system.  The administration discourages the survivor from pursuing her case because holding such a hearing is an admission that there may be rapists on campus; convicting a student confirms this truth.  Lawsuits such as the one brought by William McCormick III against Brown University have scared colleges from convicting assailants for fear of legal repercussions.  In an effort to protect their image and their endowment, universities are hesitant to mete out punishment and often overextend themselves in protecting the rights of the accused, in turn disenfranchising the complainant.  The result of this messy process is a survivor of sexual assault left without adequate emotional, mental, and academic help, forced by institutional incompetence to question the legitimacy of her experience.

The system does not have to remain broken.  There are schools across the country, often those with less prestigious names, that take this issue seriously and step up with proper professional support when confronted with cases of sexual assault.  We need a culture that recognizes the existence of rape across educational, ethnic, and socio-economic lines.  We need our colleges to begin with the correct assumption that sexual assault does occur on their campuses and from that foundation create programs which are comprehensive, honest, and progressive.

We must work to support survivors, prosecute cases in a swift and fair manner, and let colleges that will not comply with proper regulations know that we will not accept their denial and bureaucratic maneuvers any longer, no matter how prestigious their academic reputation may be.  Ask Congress to pass an inclusive Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization bill that includes the Campus SaVE Act, a critical bill that would update the Clery Act and add stalking, dating violence and domestic violence to the list of crimes colleges and universities have to include in their annual report.

Save Campus SaVE

By Anonymous

Congresswoman Gwen Moore, a champion of VAWA, addresses the crowd at the rally.

At a recent rally to support the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), I was moved by a speaker who addressed the crowd and revealed that she was a survivor of abuse.  I was impressed with her ability to use her personal experience to motivate change and improvements for all women, and I would like to do the same for college women specifically.

I am a survivor of sexual assault, perpetrated by a fellow university student who was employed as my residential adviser at the time. I made the unpopular decision to report this incident to my university to try to pursue justice. I was granted a “sexual misconduct” hearing, which is the name used on campuses that do not want to admit to having abusers or rapists among their student populations. My anger over this title was dwarfed, however, by the combination of incompetent officers who oversaw my trial.  I was interrogated, demeaned, and blamed during questioning, despite the fact that I attend a very liberal university. While the vice president who oversaw my appeal did acknowledge that my hearing was mishandled, the college’s solution was to run through the entire, sickening experience again with different faculty.

To this day, I am stunned by the way my hearing unfolded. Fortunately, after I alerted the leadership at my college about how terribly my trial was handled, the process improved for those survivors who reported incidents after me.  Still, it shouldn’t take any student feeling mistreated during her pursuit of justice to make a school wake up and realize that its system is inadequate.  That is why we need to support Campus SaVE Act (H.R. 2016/S.843), a bill included in the Senate version of VAWA (which was stripped from the House version) that improves campus support for those who experience sexual violence.

Stories like mine are not uncommon, but they can be greatly reduced with support for the Campus SaVE Act. Congress must reauthorize a version of VAWA with critical provisions such as Campus SaVE so that college students can get the help they need after incidents of sexual assault.  Whether someone decides to come forward, pursue a legal route, seek out justice within the university system, or simply receive medical and psychological help, they need access to assistance within their college. Without Campus SaVE, survivors of sexual assault are unlikely to receive timely and comprehensive help, even at some of the most progressive universities.

For those of you who have experienced violence on a college campus, you too can advocate for critical campus provisions in a final VAWA bill signing onto this letter. I also urge everyone to contact your Representative and Senators today to advocate for this provision and help students both prevent and address sexual assault in a more sensitive, systematic way.