Joe Biden calls on male students to expand role in fighting sexual assault

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/09/joe-biden-fighting-campus-sexual-assault

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Vice-President Joe Biden is urging male students to play a bigger role in attempts to combat campus sexual assault as he sets off on a weeklong college tour.

“We have more to do to change the culture that asks the wrong questions, like why were you there? What were you wearing? Were you drinking?” Biden wrote in an open letter. “We have to ask the right questions – What made him think that he could do what he did without my consent? Why on Earth did no one stop him instead of standing by?”

Related: Why do the police still tell women that they should avoid getting raped?

Biden’s tour marks roughly one year since the White House launched a campaign, It’s On Us, pushing college men to play a greater role in attempts to combat rape on campus. Echoing that campaign, Biden underlined the importance of consent to every sexual encounter: “Any time consent is not – or cannot – be given, it is sexual assault and it is a crime.”

The vice-president’s tour also takes place amid a clash between advocates for survivors of sexual assault and national Greek life organizations, two groups promoting opposing bills to curb rape on campus.

Major survivors’ groups have rallied behind the Campus Accountability and Safety Act. The bill is a longstanding effort by senators Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, both Democrats, to require sexual assault training for campus officials, standardized investigation and punishment, and increased resources for victims of assault. The bill also stiffens fines for colleges found to violate the federal requirement for reporting sexual crimes. One-third of the Senate has co-sponsored the act, which is expected to appear before Congress as part of the education budget this fall.

Related: No college should ever ask for the sexual history of alleged rape victims | Jessica Valenti

Republican representatives Pete Sessions and Kay Granger of Texas, along with Matt Salmon of Arizona, have sponsored a rival bill. The Safe Campus Act, introduced this summer, prohibits colleges from investigating reports of rape until the student bringing the complaint makes a report to police. Some 200 local and national survivors’ groups have since signed a letter deriding the bill. Sexual assault victims, they note, are often too afraid or traumatized to involve the police in a lengthy and invasive criminal investigation.

But several major groups representing fraternities and sororities, such as the National Panhellenic Conference, are pushing the bill as an alternative to McCaskill and Gillibrand’s. The two senators panned the bill in a joint call last week and encouraged dues-paying sorority and fraternity chapters to oppose the legislation. “I would be very upset if I were a young woman in a sorority today,” McCaskill said.