Campus sexual assault bill unveiled with bipartisan backing in Senate
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Version 0 of 1. A bipartisan group of US senators plan to offer a bill to combat sexual assault on college and university campuses, after investigations, lawsuits and surveys across the country appeared to show systemic mishandling of victims’ claims. The Campus Safety and Accountability Act would require colleges and universities to create a confidential adviser to guide victims through the sexual assault reporting process, require colleges and universities to conduct sexual assault surveys, create uniform investigation processes and increase fines associated with violating existing campus safety law. “We are done with the days of asking victims why they drank too much or wore the wrong thing. Those days are done,” said bill co-sponsor Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, at a press conference on Wednesday. “Students are embracing a new culture of accountability that will be a force for this measure.” The bill is the latest in a series of efforts to prop up investigations of sexual misconduct on colleges campuses, including investigations by the US Department of Education. A Senate survey released earlier this month showed that 41% of schools have not conducted a single investigation in the last five years, and 21% of institutions conducted less investigations than the number of assaults they reported to the Department of Education, based on a sample of 440 campuses. A 2007 study by the Justice Department estimates as many as one in five women are targets or victims of sexual assault on colleges campuses, but less than 5% report the assault to campus authorities or law enforcement. “What was almost worse than the actual assault for them was witnessing how their university treated them,” said Annie Clark, a sexual assault survivor and advocate from End Rape on Campus. While attempting to report her own assault at the University of North Carolina, Clark said she was told: “Rape was like a football game, and that I should look back on that game to figure out what I would do differently.” Several victims have sued campuses based on the anti-discrimination provisions of federal education law, sometimes called “Title IX” requirements. Most suits claim systemic deficiencies on campus have harmed female students’ ability to receive an education. More than 50 colleges, including prestigious universities such as Harvard, are under investigation by the Department of Education under the same provisions. The poor records of colleges and universities investigating sexual assault have made headlines for years. In one case, at the prestigious University of Notre Dame in Indiana, a female student accused a football player of sexually assaulting her. After reporting the incident, university police waited two weeks to interview the player, by which time the female student had killed herself, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Administrators would later convene a closed-door campus disciplinary hearing – three months after the student’s death became national news – in which the player was found to be not responsible. In the university’s only direct comment on the case, Notre Dame’s president, the Rev John I Jenkins, told the South Bend Tribune in December 2010 that university police had conducted a “thorough and judicious investigation that followed the facts.” He acknowledged, however, that the inquiry could have been conducted “more quickly, perhaps”. Thus far, most recommendations include better education for students and staff, simplified reporting mechanisms for victims, timely investigations and clear consequences for perpetrators. It is not the first time senators have attempted to reform procedures for investigating and prosecuting sexual assault. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York who worked on the bill, also lobbied to reform prosecution of sexual assault in the military. Gillibrand’s bill would have stripped military commanders of the power to decide which sexual assault cases are prosecuted. Despite bipartisan support, including from Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, Gillibrand’s bill failed. Some saw President Obama’s proposal to review sexual assault in the military as withering support for the bill, which failed in March. Other co-sponsors of the campus safety bill are Democratic senators Claire McCaskill, and Republicans senators Dean Heller, Chuck Grassley and Kelly Ayotte. |