10-18-15 Tennessee, National:
Nashville-area colleges big and small are developing programs to address the issue. Still, numbers suggest many have work to do.
New federal regulations now require colleges to log incidents of domestic assault, dating violence and stalking — in addition to sexual assaults — in their annual campus safety reports, which had to be completed this month.
Local advocates say the additional data provide a clearer picture of the realities of sexual violence on campus.
“Sexual violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” said Kathy Walsh, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence. “If you really want to address sexual violence, you have to address dating violence, intimate partner violence and stalking.”
The rules, part of amendments to the Violence Against Women Act and the Clery Act, also require colleges work to prevent those crimes.
Although the changes went into effect in July, Tennessee colleges have been scrambling to meet them for more than a year. Nonprofits, including the Tennessee Coalition, have hosted roundtables, workshops and conferences as colleges big and small developed and refined policies to address the issues. ..Continued.. by Adam Tamburin
October 18, 2015
Colleges provide fuller picture of sex assaults
September 21, 2015
1 in 4 Women Experience Sex Assault on Campus
9-21-15 National:
In four years of college, more than one-fourth of undergraduate women at a large group of leading universities said they had been sexually assaulted by force or when they were incapacitated, according to one of the largest studies of its kind, released Monday.
Responding to a survey commissioned by the American Association of Universities, 27.2 percent of female college seniors reported that, since entering college, they had experienced some kind of unwanted sexual contact — anything from touching to rape — carried out by incapacitation, usually due to alcohol or drugs, or by force. Nearly half of those, 13.5 percent, had experienced penetration, attempted penetration or oral sex.
The survey bolstered findings from previous studies but stands out for its sheer size — 150,000 students at 27 colleges and universities took part last spring — and for the prominence of the institutions involved, which include many of the nation’s elite campuses, including all of the Ivy League except Princeton.
Last year, President Obama convened the first White House task force on college sexual assault, part of a growing demand for colleges to acknowledge, measure and address the problem. That task force, like members of Congress and victim advocates, called on colleges to conduct rigorous “campus climate” surveys, including detailed information on the frequency of assault and harassment.
Previous studies have estimated that about one in five women are sexually assaulted while at college, though comparisons are difficult because the studies use varying definitions of sexual assault.
The new study cautioned that only 19 percent of students responded to the survey, far below the rates of some previous studies.
The A.A.U. survey found that even in the most serious assaults, those involving penetration, almost three-fourths of victims did not report the episode to anyone in authority, let alone law enforcement. The women said they did not report the assaults because they felt ashamed or did not think they would be taken seriously, or even because the women themselves did not think the incidents were serious enough to report.
“This survey is significant confirmation of a major problem, and it confirms what we’ve been saying about the mind-set on campus and the reception survivors expect to encounter,” said Zoe Ridolfi-Starr, deputy director of Know Your IX, an advocacy group that fights sexual assault.
Most of the institutions in the study released their own figures from the survey, and several of the most respected ones had some of the highest rates of sexual assault by force or incapacitation for undergraduate women — 34.6 percent at Yale, 34.3 percent at the University of Michigan, and 29.2 percent at Harvard.
The findings were “profoundly troubling,” said Yale’s president, Peter Salovey. Yale’s handling of sexual assault has come under particular scrutiny in recent years, and the university has taken a number of steps to address it. Thomas Conroy, a university spokesman, said Monday that because the A.A.U. report was the first of its kind for Yale it was impossible to know whether those measures had paid off.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, praised the study but expressed impatience that Congress had not acted to force colleges to improve their handling of sexual assault. “How many surveys will it take before we act with the urgency these crimes demand?” she asked.
Some previous studies have focused more narrowly on rape and attempted rape, but the A.A.U. survey included much broader categories. It found that, when including acts carried out without force or incapacitation but with coercion or a lack of consent — which some colleges now define as sexual assault — one-third of senior women had experienced unwanted sexual contact during college.
John D. Foubert, a professor of higher education at Oklahoma State University who studies campus sexual assault, said he was troubled by the low response rate and by the A.A.U. study’s use of slightly different definitions from previous studies.
“This is pretty consistent with what we’ve seen before,” he said.
Across the 27 universities, men experienced much lower — but still significant — rates of sexual assault than women; 8.6 percent of male seniors said they had experienced some kind of unwanted sexual contact, including 2.9 percent who said they had experienced penetration, attempted penetration or oral sex, carried out by force or incapacitation.
Transgender students and others who do not identify as either male or female had higher rates of assault than women. Experts said this was the first large-scale study they knew of to measure the extent of the problem for transgender students. ..Source.. by RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
September 16, 2015
A Campus Rape Ruling, Reversed
The University of Michigan has vacated its findings against a student accused of sexual assault, after he sued the school for violating his civil rights.
Drew Sterrett just joined a very small cohort: He is a male college student who has had a sexual assault finding against him reversed. Sterrett, 22, left the University of Michigan in 2012, halfway through his sophomore year, after the university ruled that he’d engaged in sexual intercourse with a fellow student without her consent. As I reported in Slate last year, Sterrett sued the university in federal court, claiming that the proceedings led to what he said was an erroneous conclusion and violated his 14th Amendment rights to due process. When the court rejected the university’s motion to dismiss the case, the two parties went into mandatory mediation. This rare reversal was the result, with Michigan vacating all of its findings against Sterrett and clearing his transcript of any disciplinary action.
A finding of responsibility for sexual misconduct on campus can have wide-ranging and permanent effects on a student’s life. As Sterrett’s lawsuit noted, a university official acknowledged to him that the sanctions he faced would “limit his educational, employment and career opportunities.” At a recent House hearing on campus sexual assault, Joe Cohn of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education testified that such a finding can follow a student for the rest of his life, preventing him from continuing his education and even from entering certain professions. Sterrett himself had an acceptance from another college rescinded when it learned of the Michigan finding.
In an email exchange, Sterrett described his reaction to the news as “a sense of excitement and joy.” He says of the last three years, “It really was emotionally difficult, debilitating and crushing at times.” Sterrett had been enrolled at Michigan’s school of engineering. He says because of the long delay in his education, he’s put aside his goal of getting a B.S. in that field. But he now hopes to complete a B.A. in economics and to work with small startup businesses. His attorney, Deborah Gordon, says, “The whole goal was to let Drew go on with his life.”
The sexual encounter in question took place in March 2012, in the spring semester of Sterrett’s freshman year. Legal documents described how the female student, CB, who was a friend of Sterrett’s, asked to stay in his room because her roommate was having guests. He expected her to sleep on a mat on the floor and was surprised when she got into his bunk bed. Soon the two were kissing, then more; CB asked Sterrett about a condom, and he got one. Their encounter went on for so long, and was so loud, that Sterrett’s roommate, who was trying to sleep in the top bunk, sent Sterrett an annoyed Facebook message about being kept awake. The roommate later gave a sworn statement that he was close enough to the pair that he would have heard, and intervened, if CB had said no or objected. ..Continued.. by Emily Yoffe
Justice Department Announces $8.5 Million in Grants to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence and Stalking on College Campuses
9-16-15 Washington DC:
The Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) today announced 27 awards totaling $8.5 million to enhance victim services and develop programs to prevent, investigate and respond to sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking on campus. The awards are made with funds from the Grants to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking on Campus Program (campus program).
The campus program supports institutions of higher education in developing comprehensive coordinated campus and community-based approaches to prevent and respond to sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking. Recipients are required to conduct mandatory prevention and education programming for all incoming students and to train campus law enforcement and all members of campus disciplinary boards to respond effectively to sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking. Campuses can use funds to develop and adopt policies and protocols that prioritize victim safety and hold offenders accountable.
“We know that victims who receive comprehensive advocacy and services are more likely to achieve their goals of safety, autonomy and healing,” said Principal Deputy Director Bea Hanson of the Office on Violence Against Women. “Coordination between on-and-off campus victim services organizations and the local criminal justice system is critical to providing holistic support and services that victims need and ensuring that perpetrators are held accountable.” ..Continue.. by DOJ
September 3, 2015
Daily Marijuana Use Among College Students Reaches 30-Year High
The percentage of U.S. college students who say they smoke marijuana daily or nearly every day is at its highest in more than three decades, according to a new survey.
In 2014, 5.9 percent of college students said they smoked marijuana 20 or more times in the prior month. That’s up from 3.5 percent in 2007, and is the highest rate of near-daily use reported since the survey began, in 1980, the researchers said.
In fact, in 2014, near-daily use of marijuana was more common than daily cigarette use for the first time, the researchers found. Just 5.2 percent of college students said they smoked cigarettes every day, down from about 19 percent in 1999.
In addition, the percentage of college students who said they used marijuana at least once a month increased from 17 percent in 2006 to 21 percent in 2014. In addition, the percentage of college students who said they used the drug at least once a year rose from 30 percent in 2006 to 34 percent in 2014.
The increase in marijuana use may be tied to a change in how young people view the drug. In 2006, 55 percent of 19- to 22-year-olds said they viewed regular marijuana use as dangerous, but in 2014, just 35 percent said the same, the survey found. Also in recent years, an increasing number of states have legalized the drug, for medical or recreational purposes.
A similar rise in marijuana use has also been seen among high school students, said Lloyd Johnston, a research scientist at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, who led the study.
The survey also found that use of amphetamines— such as Adderall— for nonmedical reasons is also on the rise in college students. In 2012, 11.1 percent of college students said they had used amphetamines for nonmedical reasons in the past year, up from 5.7 percent in 2008.
“It seems likely that this increase in amphetamine use on the college campus resulted from more students using these drugs to try toimprove their studies and test performance,” Johnston said in a statement. (Amphetamines are stimulants sometimes used to treat ADHD, but they can be abused by people who take the drug, without a prescription, for its ability to increase focus and attention.) ..Continued.. by LiveScience
September 1, 2015
Sex registry questioned after prep school grad's conviction
CONCORD, N.H. — A graduate of an elite prep school who was convicted of having sexual contact with a 15-year-old classmate as part of a game of sexual conquest will be required to register as a sex offender for life, a punishment his lawyer likens to being branded and legal experts and reform advocates say exceeds the crime.
Owen Labrie, 19, was convicted Friday following a two-week trial full of lurid details that exposed a practice at St. Paul's School known as Senior Salute, in which graduating students try to have sex with younger classmates. Besides a felony conviction for using a computer to invite the girl to the encounter when he was 18 years old, he was convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault and child endangerment. He faces anywhere from probation to 11 years in prison when he's sentenced in October.
Under New Hampshire's 1992 law that established the sex offender registry, the felony conviction mandates lifetime registration, though a change made in 2008 means Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, can petition the court to be removed from the list 15 years after the end of his sentence. The misdemeanor charges put him on the list for at least 10 years before he can ask to be removed.
Labrie had been accepted to Harvard University and planned to take divinity courses. He testified that he and the girl had consensual sexual contact after he invited her to participate in Senior Salute, but he denied having intercourse. The girl acknowledged going willingly with Labrie to an academic building on the Concord campus two days before graduation last year but said she was unprepared when he became aggressive.
Professor Stephen Saltzburg, from the George Washington University Law School, said Labrie's registry registration could be viewed as excessive.
"There's a good case to be made that, while the young man may have taken advantage of a considerably younger female, the idea of lifetime registration seems over the top," Saltzburg said.
The public list of people who have committed sex crimes against children, which is posted online, includes an offender's name, age, address, photograph, crimes and, sometimes, a victim profile.
After the trial, Labrie's lawyer said the convictions "forever changed" his life and will be like "a brand, a tattoo" that will follow him. Lawyer J.W. Carney declined to comment on Monday. Labrie is free on $15,000 bail as he awaits sentencing. ..Continued.. by RIK STEVENS
August 31, 2015
Re-Examining The Legal Definition Of Sexual Assault
A verdict in the New Hampshire prep school rape trial. And calls for changing sexual assault laws.
Rape sounds clear and bad. In the courtroom, it can get messy. On Friday, a New Hampshire jury found 19-year-old now prep school grad Owen Labrie guilty of misdemeanor statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl, a schoolmate.
But the jury found prosecutors did not prove he acted without her consent. He may face jail time, but not on the most serious felony sex charges. Across the country, standards are all over the place. Where should they be? At force? At “no means no?” Or at “yes means yes?” Affirmative consent? This Hour, On Point: drawing clearer lines on rape.
Guests
Dale Vincent, Court and crime reporter for the New Hampshire Union Leader.
Emily Bazelon, staff writer for the New York Times Magazine. Co-host of the Slate “Political Gabfest” podcast. Truman Capote Fellow at Yale Law School. (@emilybazelon)
Deborah Terkheimer, professor at the Northwestern University School of Law. Former assistant district attorney in New York, specializing in sex crimes and domestic violence. Co-author, with Cynthia Bowman, Kim Yuracko and Laura Rosenbury, of “Feminist Jurisprudence.”
John Banzhaf III, professor of law at the George Washington Univeristy School of Law. (@profbanzhaf)
See numerous comments on source site: ..Source.. by - Tom Ashbrook
August 15, 2015
Student Wrongfully Expelled for Rape Triumphs in Court: Due Process Beats 'Yes Means Yes'
The University of Tennessee shifted the burden of proof and violated the rights of accused student Corey Mock.
A judge overturned the expulsion of Corey Mock—a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga student and star wrestler—after determining that UTC’s administration had improperly required Mock to prove that he was innocent of sexually assaulting another student.
The decision is a significant blow to the concept of affirmative consent. According to Judge Carol McCoy, UTC’s consent standard wrongfully shifted the burden of proof and violated Mock’s due process rights.
Mock’s expulsion stemmed from a sexual encounter with a fellow student, Molly Morris, during the spring of 2014. Morris and Mock had met online and quickly become friends; they hung out on several occasions and decided to attend a house party together. Morris had too much to drink—someone might have slipped her something, though no evidence established this—and went to the bathroom to be sick. Mock found her, took her to a bedroom, and they had sex.
A week after the incident, Morris told Mock that she had not given consent. Three months later, she formally accused him of raping her.
The campus judicial process initially cleared Mock, but UTC Chancellor Steven Angle took an interest in the case after meeting with Morris. Angle asked the campus adjudicators to re-hear the case. This time, Mock was found guilty.
The rationale was atrocious. As KC Johnson of Minding the Campus explains:
Angle, for his part, argued that Mock had failed to prove that he had obtained affirmative consent—that is, that Mock, not UTC, had the burden of proof in the initial hearing. UTC hadn’t adopted a “yes means yes” policy, but Angle inferred it through various provisions in the school’s code, and in other writings.UTC’s decision was a powerful confirmation of due process advocates’ worst fears about affirmative consent policies. I have long-argued that the “Yes Means Yes,” when judged by university officials, in tandem with a preponderance of the evidence standard, creates a de facto assumption that an accused student is guilty unless he can prove otherwise--turning innocent until proven guilty on its head.
Consider what evidence Mock would have had to present at his hearing in order to clear himself. Only a signed document—or, perhaps, a video of the encounter—could have definitively established that he had Morris’s permission to proceed. Do college administrators really expect students to draw up consent papers, or film sex tapes? (Sadly, some activists do.)
Earlier this week, Judge Carol McCoy recognized the fundamental unfairness of Mock’s situation and agreed with him that UTC had established an impossible standard. According to her ruling:
The UTC Chancellor improperly shifted the burden of proof and imposed an untenable standard upon Mr. Mock to disprove the accusation that he forcibly assaulted Ms. Morris. He made no finding that Ms. Morris did not consent, intertwined the definition in SOC 7 of sexual assault and sexual misconduct, and made no distinction as to which acts had occurred.The Washington Examiner’s Ashe Schow reports that Mock and his family are relieved:
Mock's father, in an email to the Washington Examiner, said that he and his son are "very pleased with the judge's decision; we weren't sure if anyone was going to follow the law, and this has restored our faith." But he is aware that UTC may try to appeal the ruling and that this case may not be over.The ruling is obviously a great outcome for Mock, and perhaps UTC administrators will be less eager to railroad accused students in the future. But many more judges will have to reach the same conclusion as McCoy if anything is to be done to stop affirmative consent policies from sweeping the nation’s campuses. ..Source.. by Robby Soave
As for what's next for Corey Mock, his father is unsure.
"No idea where Corey goes from here, he is weighing his options, something he hasn't had in a long time," Mock's father wrote. "This is the first good news we have had in over a year and we are thanking God and trying to enjoy it."
August 10, 2015
"Yes Means Yes" Date-Rape Consent Rule Unconstitutional - Judge
Both He and She Were Too Drunk to Recall Sex, So the University of Tennessee Expelled Only Him
In what may foreshadow the end to a new "yes means yes" standard of consent for date rape, already been adopted in California and New York as well as on many other campuses, a judge has ruled - in a case in which both parties were so drunk they did not even know if sex had actually occurred - that the new standard violated the U.S. Constitution.
This follows an earlier decision in which another judge had also ruled that the federal Constitution applies to date rape proceedings at all state colleges, and that it requires that the accused be provided with all the procedural protections required by Due Process.
Law Professor John Banzhaf predicted, at the time of the earlier California ruling, that the Due Process requirement would be imposed on other universities, and now suggests that such rulings will continue.
If so, the result could be disastrous for those who seek to make it easier to convict male students of date rape since the Constitution trumps federal and state legislation, as well as efforts by the Departments of Education and Justice to pressure universities to do more to convict students.
In other words, if the Constitution prohibits a “yes means yes” standard of consent, or if it requires the right of the accused to cross examine the complainant as it did in California, that cannot be changed by legislation, by federal agencies, or even by the colleges themselves, warns Banzhaf.
The Tennessee court held that it was unconstitutional for the University, under its "yes means yes" standard, to require the male student to establish his own innocence with proof that consent had been given, rather than putting the burden of proof on the accuser or the University as is always the case in both criminal and civil proceedings.
"If both students were too drunk to even remember if intercourse occurred, much less the circumstances under which it happened, it is obviously fundamentally unfair to require only one student but not the other to prove that there was consent," argued Banzhaf.
It's certainly possible that she and not he was the aggressor that night if she climbed on top of him and herself caused the insertion, notes Banzhaf. If so, under "yes means yes," she could presumably be guilty of rape - or at least sexual assault - on him.
Also, if neither one affirmatively provided consent, each would under "yes means yes" be guilty of sexually assaulting the other.
Banzhaf is only one of many law professors, also including female professors, to complain that many university date-rape proceedings are blatantly unconstitutional. ..Source.. by GWU Law School
July 17, 2015
UC San Diego Loses in Sex-Assault Case
After several troubling court decisions on the handling of college sex cases, a state judge in California has issued a ringing defense of due process. The ruling by Judge Joel Pressman, first reported by Ashe Schow, held that the University of California-San Diego (UCSD), had provided a fundamentally unfair procedure to a student accused of sexual assault. Scott Greenfield has an excellent analysis of the ruling, which also has been covered by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, as well as by FIRE.
The case involved two students (both pseudonymous) who had a brief affair in early 2014. Contemporaneous text messages the accuser sent suggested that the intercourse had been voluntary, and that the accuser was at least somewhat experienced with alcohol. The sexual relationship quickly ended, but soon after the accused student attended a late spring social event at the accuser’s sorority (with another date), the accuser filed a complaint with UCSD.
The accuser wrote out a statement and was interviewed by one of UCSD’s “complaint resolution officers,” Elena Acevedo Dalcourt. (UCSD has refused to turn over either the statement or Dalcourt’s interview notes.) Only then did the accuser make a formal statement alleging two separate instances of sexual misconduct: first on the evening of a party (at which she had “brought a change of clothes to [the accused student’s] place,” with the expectation of sleeping over) and then on the morning after. She also claimed that despite a text message that she had a contact who “usually” purchased her alcohol (since she was underage), she actually was “inexperienced” with alcohol, and the accused took advantage by encouraging her to drink heavily.
Investigator Dalcourt found insufficient evidence of the first claim, but concluded that it was likely sexual contact occurred without “effective consent” the following morning. The investigator reached this conclusion because the accuser, in her interviews, “exhibited signs of a trauma victim.” Dalcourt’s report did not reveal what those signs were. ..Continued.. by KC Johnson
July 13, 2015
Due process win: California judge rules campus kangaroo court 'unfair'
A California judge just issued a win to proponents of due process in campus sexual assault hearings.
Judge Joel M. Pressman deemed a University of California-San Diego campus hearing "unfair," ruling that the hearing panel limited the accused student's right to due process.
The accused student, listed as John Doe, had sued the university after being suspended for sexual assault without due process. John claimed that his right to cross-examine his accuser and adverse witnesses was limited, and Pressman agreed.
John was only allowed to submit questions to the hearing panel to be asked of his accuser, named in the lawsuit as Jane Roe. Of the 32 questions submitted by John, only nine were asked, and only after the questions were reviewed by the hearing chair.
"The Court determines that it is unfair to Petitioner that his questions were reviewed by the Panel Chair for her alone to determine whether or not the question would be asked and then answered by the witness," Pressman wrote. "While the Court understands the need to prevent additional trauma to potential victims of sexual abuse, this can be achieved in a less restrictive manner. The limiting of the questions in this case curtailed the right of confrontration [sic] crucial to any definition of a fair hearing."
Pressman noted that seven questions not asked by the panel chair dealt with text messages between John and Jane. The panel chair also paraphrased a question regarding John and Jane's relationship after the alleged sexual assault and allowed Jane to claim that their post-encounter relationship was not relevant. Further, Jane's questions were not given the same prior review as John's.
Pressman also decried the school disallowing John to cross-examine and question the only "evidence" at his hearing beside the accuser's story. Submitted to the hearing panel was an investigative report conducted by Elena Acevedo Dalcourt, the school's complaint resolution officer. But Dalcourt did not attend the hearing, which prevented John from questioning her account of the incident.
"[T]he Panel relied on evidence that was outside the hearing. Ms. Dalcourt did not testify. While the technical rule of hearsay is not applicable to the hearing, the hearing did not allow petitioner any opportunity to refute Ms. Dalcourt's findings," Pressman wrote. "Ms. Dalcourt's conclusions were crucial to the findings, but petitioner was denied his right of confrontation."
John was also not provided all of the evidence against him that was found in Dalcourt's report. He was not given the names of the witnesses interviewed by Dalcourt or all of Jane's statements prior to the hearing.
Pressman reminded the university that "it was the panel's responsibility to determine whether it was more likely than not that petitioner violated the policy and not defer to an investigator who was not even present to testify at the hearing." (Emphasis original.)
In a real court, defendants are allowed to exercise their Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. In campus courts, students who don't give statements to investigating administrators often have their silence used against them, as was the case with John Doe.
"While John stated during the hearing that he did not digitally penetrate Jane's vagina, he abstained from providing additional information regarding the incident and what occurred around the time of the incident and the panel would have liked to hear more information from him," the hearing panel wrote in its findings.
Pressman goes on to detail the lack of evidence to support the university's finding of guilt. Specifically, he explained that Jane "did not object to sexual contact per se, and only explained that it was not pleasurable for her at that time." Jane also admitted during the hearing that she voluntarily consented to John later in the day of the alleged incident.
"When viewed as part of the entire narrative, the sequence of events do not demonstrate non-consensual behavior," Pressman wrote. "What the evidence does show is Ms. Roe's personal regret for engaging in sexual activity beyond her boundaries."
Pressman quoted from the hearing panel's finding: "Jane stated that she physically wanted to have sex with [the accused] but mentally wouldn't." This reservation, Pressman wrote, should not be seen as John's fault, "particularly if she is indicating physically she wants to have sex."
Beyond the unfairness of John's hearing, Pressman lambasted the university for continuously increasing John's punishment without any explanation. Upon the finding of responsibility, John was first sanctioned to a one-month suspension and required to attend sexual harassment training and counseling. He was also told never to contact Jane again, "due to the potential for ongoing harm to the complaining witness."
After John appealed the ruling, his sanctions were increased to a one-year suspension (meaning he would have to reapply to the university), put on non-academic probation and required to attend ethics workshops – on top of the original sanctions.
When John appealed that decision, his sanctions were increased yet again to a one-year-and-one-quarter-suspension. None of the additional sanctions were given any explanation.
In another recent court ruling on campus sexual assault, a judge found that since the school followed it's own policies, it was not guilty of violating a student's due process rights. Judge Pressman argues differently – that since the policy was unfair, so was the finding.
John Doe's attorney, Mark Hathaway, released a statement following the judge's ruling late last week.
"It's encouraging to see courts recognizing that sexual misconduct complaints on campus cannot be resolved at the expense of Constitutional rights and fundamental fairness," Hathaway wrote. "Colleges and universities must treat all student's fairly, regardless of gender. All too often the male student is just presumed responsible and given no access to any campus resources. Hopefully Judge Pressman's ruling today will help correct the imbalance."
Advocates for due process had been issued a couple adverse decisions earlier this year when it came to campus sexual assault. And although John Doe received some justice in this case, there are dozens more accused students waiting for court rulings – and even more than that who don't have the resources to hire an attorney and fight their schools.
Judge Pressman's ruling should serve as an example to schools and the federal government as they continue to push Kafkaesque campus hearings that deny due process and promote a guilty-until-proven-innocent standard. ..Source.. by Ashe Schow
July 1, 2015
Regulating Sex
THIS is a strange moment for sex in America. We’ve detached it from pregnancy, matrimony and, in some circles, romance. At least, we no longer assume that intercourse signals the start of a relationship. But the more casual sex becomes, the more we demand that our institutions and government police the line between what’s consensual and what isn’t. And we wonder how to define rape. Is it a violent assault or a violation of personal autonomy? Is a person guilty of sexual misconduct if he fails to get a clear “yes” through every step of seduction and consummation?
According to the doctrine of affirmative consent — the “yes means yes” rule — the answer is, well, yes, he is. And though most people think of “yes means yes” as strictly for college students, it is actually poised to become the law of the land.
About a quarter of all states, and the District of Columbia, now say sex isn’t legal without positive agreement, although some states undercut that standard by requiring proof of force or resistance as well.
Codes and laws calling for affirmative consent proceed from admirable impulses. (The phrase “yes means yes,” by the way, represents a ratcheting-up of “no means no,” the previous slogan of the anti-rape movement.) People should have as much right to control their sexuality as they do their body or possessions; just as you wouldn’t take a precious object from someone’s home without her permission, you shouldn’t have sex with someone if he hasn’t explicitly said he wants to.
And if one person can think he’s hooking up while the other feels she’s being raped, it makes sense to have a law that eliminates the possibility of misunderstanding. “You shouldn’t be allowed to make the assumption that if you find someone lying on a bed, they’re free for sexual pleasure,” says Lynn Hecht Schafran, director of a judicial education program at Legal Momentum, a women’s legal defense organization. ..Continued.. by Judith Shulevitz
May 21, 2015
Had a drink before sex? You’ve been raped, says latest 1-in-5 campus rape survey
5-21-15 National:
This should be the headline on any media report of this new single-university study of campus sexual assault: “Researchers say you’ve been raped if you’re buzzed during sex.”
Here at The College Fix we’re used to seeing sloppy or nonexistent definitions of “incapacitation” in the context of sexual-violence surveys, education and training materials, legislation and campus conduct codes.
It’s not a light matter: Taking advantage of someone who’s incapacitated is not only grounds for expulsion, but prosecution.
But the definition in the new study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, which is not spelled out in the paper’s free abstract (you’d have to pay for the full paper to find it), is so ludicrous that it’s amazing it got past peer review.
Ashe Schow at the Washington Examiner obtained a copy from one of the study authors, who readily admitted it’s not representative beyond the one upstate New York university where it surveyed just under 500 freshmen women.
Schow writes:
Where the study is a little different than others is that it doesn’t include fondling or kissing in its definition of sexual assault. Past studies have included such actions to bolster their findings. The study also separates “forcible rape” from “incapacitated rape.” Naturally, the study found a higher rate of “incapacitated rape.” This is problematic because “incapacitated” is loosely defined early in the paper as “when alcohol or other drugs are used,” which would include an exorbitant number of consensual sexual encounters.“When alcohol or other drugs are used.” When are alcohol or other drugs not used ahead of time when coeds – especially strangers or friends with relationship-boundary issues – hook up? ..Continued.. by Greg Piper
May 6, 2015
Education Department sees doubling in campus sex crime stats over 5-year period
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of sex offenses on college campuses reported to the Education Department nearly doubled over a five-year period.
In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., released Tuesday by her office, department officials said they believe the increase is the result of federal enforcement efforts and growing public attention to the issues of campus sexual assault.
In 2009, there were 3,357 such sex offense cases reported to the department in annual crime statistics reports, compared to 6,073 cases in 2013, the letter said. Education and law enforcement officials say sex offenses are underreported crimes, and the true number of such cases is likely much higher.
The Obama administration has taken several steps to push colleges and universities to better tackle the problem of sexual assault, including releasing the names of colleges and universities facing Title IX investigations for their handling of such cases.
Laura Palumbo, prevention campaign specialist with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, said the difference in the number of sex offense reports likely reflects that campuses are doing a better job following procedures and collecting and reporting such crimes. However, Palumbo said, campuses are still inconsistent in how they collect and report sexual offenses, and there have been complaints that they are underreporting the problem.
The letter was released by Boxer along with Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Tim Kaine of Virginia. Boxer said the data makes clear why the department "must step up its efforts to address the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses, and why Congress must ensure it has the resources it needs to protect students."
The letter was signed by Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Dpeartment, and James Runcie, the chief operating officer for Federal Student Aid. The two said department officials expect the average amount of time to resolve cases will decrease as the agency closes its older cases or Congress increases funding to handle the cases.
Among the other figures released in the letter:
— The department's Office of Civil Rights saw an increase in sexual violence complaints involving colleges and universities that went from 9 in 2009 to 102 in 2014.
— Cases that resulted in "substantive closures" took, on average, 1,469 days in the 2014 budget year — or about four years — for the department or resolve. by KIMBERLY HEFLING
April 6, 2015
MSU surveying students about sex misconduct
Michigan State University is emailing a questionnaire Monday to its 50,000 students asking detailed and specific questions about their “personal experiences with sexual misconduct,” including harassment and assault.
The East Lansing school says the 20-minute survey is meant to “help guide decisions and policies regarding sexual assault” on campus. It’s offering cash prizes as an incentive to get as many students as possible to take part.
The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is among 27 other schools that are conducting similar surveys under an initiative from the Association of American Universities.
The U.S. Education Department last year revealed that the two Michigan universities were among dozens of schools that it was investigating for the way they handle sexual abuse allegations. ..Source.. by DAVID N. GOODMAN
March 25, 2015
Tracking rape, on and off campus
3-25-15 National:
Campus rape is a serious problem. But while public attention is focused on students carrying mattresses and the discredited Rolling Stone report about rape at the University of Virginia, the fact is that sexual assault is more common off campus than on.
Consider this: If you lived in Gallup, New Mexico in 2013, you were 47 times more likely to be raped than if you attended Harvard, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) statistics. Yet chances are you won’t see any protesters in New Mexico. Coverage of campus rape has likely increased for a variety of reasons – the social media influence of the at-risk demographic, the ability of victims and supporters to articulate the problem and because it — like any other type of violent crime in poor communities — is more of a surprise. That’s not to lessen one or the other; just a diagnosis of the arc of public attention.
A 2014 report from the Department of Justice called Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995–2013 found that non-students aged 18-24 were 20% more likely to be sexually assaulted than students. Also, as these Reuters graphics show, the severity of the assault was worse for non-students, the rate of completed rape as opposed to other kinds of assault being 50% higher. ..Source..w/Charts.. by Lewis Braham
March 3, 2015
Bill to beef up sex assault policies reintroduced to US Senate
A bipartisan group of 12 U.S. senators introduced a renewed version of a bill Thursday that aims to curb sexual assault on the campuses of universities receiving federal funding by implementing stronger provisions that regulate how sexual assault cases are dealt with and safeguard the rights of both accusers and the accused.
If passed, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act will amend the Clery Act and enhance Title IX requirements regarding sexual violence. The bill requires universities to conduct biannual surveys recording student experiences with sexual assault, outlines a uniform campus disciplinary hearing process and stipulates that campuses must designate a confidential adviser to counsel survivors of sexual assault, among other regulations. The bill also increases penalties for Clery Act and Title IX violations, including a penalty of up to 1 percent of the institution’s operating budget and a $115,000 fine increase for Clery Act violations.
“To truly curb these crimes, we’ve got to have a road map for colleges and universities to increase responsiveness when crimes occur, better protect and empower students, and establish
better-informed guidelines that actually have some teeth,” said co-sponsor Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, in a press release.
The CASAct was first introduced to the Senate last July and was referred to a committee, but it was never voted on. The reintroduced version of the bill received input from sexual assault survivors and advocates, such as members of the group End Rape on Campus, or EROC.
UC Berkeley and the other UC campuses have already established a confidential adviser. The campus hired confidential adviser Mari Knuth-Bouracee last November after UC President Janet Napolitano’s sexual assault task force was formed. ..Continued.. by Elaina Provencio
March 1, 2015
What could go wrong? DOJ to fund research on campus sex assault policies
3-1-15 National:
The United States Department of Justice wants to know if what your college is doing about sexual assault is effective. It’ll give you some cash to figure that out.
The DOJ’s National Institute of Justice, “alongside the Office on Violence Against Women and Office of Justice Programs,” has now opened the application process for researchers to obtain grants to study the issue.
The Daily Californian reports:
The justice institute hopes to shed light on newer, more promising methods of addressing sexual assault on college campuses, the proposal said.UC Berkeley senior Aryle Butler, a member of the survivor advocacy organization End Rape On Campus, says that “the DOJ grant is a good initiative to analyze our campus more objectively.” But, she added, if Berkeley decided to apply for a grant, “there should be an additional layer of oversight and protection to the research to ensure that statistics are not deflated or inflated.”
The program comes in response to the April 2014 White House Task Force Report to Protect Students From Sexual Assault, which advocated improved understanding of campus sexual assault investigations and adjudications on campuses.
In May of last year, the White House released a list of universities, including UC Berkeley and three other California schools, under investigation for possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints.
According to the proposal, applicants for the grant must be the entity with primary responsibility for conducting and leading the sexual assault research.
Of course, this is the same federal government that told us one in five women are sexually assaulted while in college, a rather dubious statistic, to say the least. ..Source.. by The College Fix
February 28, 2015
Rape on Campus: Study Links 40 Percent of Reported Gang Rape Attacks to College Athletes
2-28-15 National:
Campus sexual assault has become an all-too-frequent problem in America's universities.
United Educators, the company that offers liability insurance to schools, put out a new study titled Student Sexual Assault: Weathering the Perfect Storm. The study examined their client colleges from 2011 to 2013. U.E. was able to collect a wider set of information on both the alleged victim and the perpetrator, as well as how the school responded.
Al Jazeera examined some conclusions made from the United Educators study on campus assault.
One of the conclusions the report made is campus sexual assault involving multiple perpetrators was often committed by college athletes. They made up 40 percent of gang rape attacks reported to schools. The report points to the athletic "culture that promotes hyper-masculinity, sexual aggression and excessive alcohol consumption."
en percent of the sexual assault reports U.E. looked at involved more than one perpetrator.
The study also found fraternity members were more likely to be repeat offenders.
Fraternity members made up 10 percent of accused perpetrators in the study. However, these students made up 24 percent of repeat offenders. Athletes made up another 20 percent. The report concluded that 1 in 5 rapists were repeat offenders.
Both alleged victims and rapists were more likely to be drinking prior to the assault. In 11 percent of "physical force assaults," the attacker was more likely to be drinking and the victim was not. This was also found in 7 percent of attacks, where the alleged rapist inferred consent from the victim's silence.
U.E. suggests drinking enables some students "to more easily use force to obtain sex when their partner refuses" and "contributes to misinterpreting sexual interest or ignoring their partner's hesitation."
The release of the study comes in the wake of the conviction of two former Vanderbilt student athletes for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. Two years after the attack, Brandon Vandenburg and Cory Batey, both 21, were found guilty in January. The two face 15 to 80 years for the crime. Vandenburg was a former tight end for the school's football team. Batey was a wide receiver. The convicted rapists' defense team claimed both defendants were too drunk to be in their right minds. Two other students will be put on trial at a later date. ..Source.. by Jaclyn Diaz
February 27, 2015
Warner and Bipartisan Coalition of Senators Introduce Legislation to Prevent Sexual Assaults on College Campuses
Joined by survivors and advocates, bipartisan group of 10 Senators reintroduces strengthened version of Campus Safety and Accountability Act with added input from colleges and universities, students, law enforcement, and advocates
Today, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and a bipartisan coalition of 10 Senators introduced a strengthened version of the Campus Accountability and Safety Act. With added input from survivors, students, colleges and universities, law enforcement and advocates, the bill would flip the current incentives of a broken system to provide real accountability and transparency from higher education institutions. The legislation would professionalize the response to and reporting of sexual assaults that occur on campuses to better protect and empower students, while also protecting the rights of accused students.
“It’s time we empower students and end this culture that has fostered this epidemic. Our legislation does just that, by encouraging prevention and demanding more transparency, consistency and accountability from universities nationwide,” said Senator Warner. “As the father of three college-age daughters, I am heartbroken and appalled by the stories we’ve heard about the prevalence of campus assault and the uneven way many universities have chosen to respond to it. It’s time to put a stop to these crimes once and for all.”
The legislation was introduced Thursday by Mark Warner (D-VA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Dean Heller (R-NV), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) and Gary Peters (D-MI).
The legislation would secure landmark reforms for how colleges and universities address and report incidents of sexual assault that occur on their campuses. It incorporates feedback from key stakeholders to strengthen how student surveys are conducted and strengthens training standards. The provisions safeguard both survivors and accused students. It extends the amount of time survivors have to file a case with the Department of Education, and sets new notification requirements for both survivors and accused students involved in the campus disciplinary process. ..Source.. by Press Release
