When it comes to sexual assault, it shouldn’t matter who or where you are. Victims of such horrendous crimes should be treated with the utmost care and respect, and offenders should be fully brought to justice under the law. Unfortunately, dozens of our nation’s schools seem to be consistently mishandling these cases that its students are bringing forth.
As a nation we expect our universities, which attract top students from all over the world, to provide not only a top level of education but also a high level of commitment and care to their students. These are schools that have been lowering admittance rates and raising tuition costs substantially over the last couple of decades with the allure of allowing students to learn and grow in a safe environment. So it is disturbing that federal investigators have opened an investigation into 55 different colleges and universities that may have wrongfully and illegally handled sexual violence and harassment complaints. These schools, which span across 27 states and D.C., include some of the country’s most elite institutions, such as Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, UC Berkeley, and the University of Michigan.
Title IX
These federal investigations are taking place under Title IX, which ensures that schools do not deny or limit students in their ability to participate in any educational program or activity based on their sex. Under Title IX, if a school knows about sexual violence or harassment, they must:
- Immediately take action to eliminate and prevent it from happening again.
- Take steps to resolve the situation (even if the student and parents don’t want to file a complaint).
- They must do all of this even if a separate criminal investigation is underway.
As many students have seen after they have fallen victim to sexual assault, their schools have indeed not complied with Title IX, adding hardship and challenges to those who have already suffered. Recently, an anonymous student at Harvard published an open letter in the school’s newspaper, claiming that another student sexually assaulted her. When she went to the administration, she was allegedly told that her situation, which she claims consisted of him verbally pressuring her into sex and physically hurting her, did not fall under the school’s category of sexual assault, which defines “indecent assault and battery” as “unwanted touching or fondling of a sexual nature that is accompanied by physical force or threat of bodily injury,” a policy that was made in 1993. They refused to move the accused out of her dorm without an investigation but told her if she started an investigation it would be dismissed based on the policy’s language. Harvard is the only Ivy League school to not have an affirmative consent doctrine, which means it is the potential victim’s job to deter someone who wants to have sex with them.
These cases happen across the country
A student at Emerson College, Sarah Tedesco, claimed after she reported a rape by a student from her dorm she was met with responses from administrators such as, “What were you wearing?” and that she should “not make a big deal out of [her] assault.” After a brief investigation her case was dismissed. She and four other assault victims were then able to file a complaint to the Department of Education, whose Office of Civil Rights has seen sexual violence complaints nearly triple in the last four years.
Under Title IX, any federally funded school that does not comply risks losing federal funding and action from the Justice Department, which is how it should be for these schools. College should be a safe place for our next generation’s minds to grow, and any school that doesn’t ensure this safe space for its students should question and reevaluate its own policies and administration, not for a feared loss of funding but in the interests of its students. After victims of sexual assault endure such traumatic experiences, the least that can be done is provide them with support and justice, not doubt and dismissive attitudes.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Avvo.
3 comments
Jo Wright
We need to talk about sex and consent language with young adults, who do not want to hear old fogies talking about SEX.
Consent to kiss is not consent to sex.
Consent to fondling is not consent to sex.
NO response is NOT consent to sex.
Consent to sex is no longer inferred (noises and groans do not equate to consent).
Nowadays, if you're in college and you want to have sex with someone else (haha!!), you MUST speak your intentions; giving and hearing a verbal consent to sex. An effective method to communicate exactly what we want? I think so.
Ray
in my opinion people who are subjected to sexual abuse or actually any kind of abuse should NOT notify the school officials, they should go directly to the police.. School officials are going to try and keep such abuse quiet, which is the wrong thing to do... notify the Police immediately ..
Susanne Ritchie
I have been working for Wal-mart for almost 7 years. I have been telling management I have a lot of knowledge about power and control and abuse. I have been working in a hostile environment and anytime I say anything it gets distorted by the time it gets to management. I have been bullied and my civil rights have been violated. They have as far as gone to the places I shop and eat and had others test me to see how I react. They have involved my doctor,bank and neighbors. The management have put me in situations where I have to defend myself from another employee verbally abusing me and nothing gets done when I let management know what is going on in the department. I have been tripped by management and followed throughout the store by security. The management keeps setting me up all the time and my health is starting to be affected by all the stress. The management act like they are god. Please give me some advice about my civil rights. I refuse to go away because I have earned the right to be there.