A group of Democratic senators called on the U.S. Department of Justice to tie federal aid for colleges to campus rape prevention measures. Our guest talks about the proposal and other efforts to decrease sexual assaults at universities. We also learn why Wisconsin’s assault investigation process makes victims wait, and talk about how we can clean up public discourse.
Featured in this Show
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Tammy Baldwin Presses Feds To Get Tough On Sexual Assault Cases On Campus
A group of U.S. senators, including Tammy Baldwin, called on the departments of education and justice to hold universities and colleges accountable for failing to comply with laws that require schools to report sexual assault incidents on campus.
The 30 senators, all of whom are Democrats or independents, wrote a letter to Education Secretary John King and Attorney General Loretta Lynch voicing their concerns that higher education institutions are failing to comply with the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act.
The act was passed last July and requires schools to report sexual assault, stalking, dating and domestic violence incidents in addition to other crime data. But, of the 11,600 schools across the country that filed crime data, 91 percent reported no occurrences of sexual assault at all.
Neena Chaudhry, education director and senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, said those numbers raise a red flag.
“When national stats repeatedly show that 20 to 25 percent of young women are sexually assaulted on college campuses and you have 91 percent of schools that are required to report don’t, you worry that students don’t feel comfortable coming forward,” she said.
Data from the Department of Justice and Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that one in five females has been sexually assaulted during the undergrad years.
Chaudhry said the discrepancy demonstrates the need for federal agencies to reinforce schools’ obligation and to help academic institutions create a more supportive reporting process that will make it more comfortable for victims to come forward.
Title IV also enters the picture, said Chaudhry. Those regulations require schools to take prompt action — including providing a fair and thorough investigation and providing protective accommodations to students who are involved — when receiving reports of sexual assaults on campus. Schools could lose federal funding for failing to do so.
“Under Title IV, the federal government has the authority to stop any federal funding that the school is receiving, but that has never happened in the history of the law,” she said.
Typically what happens instead, said Chaudhry, is that education department officials work with schools to help them come into compliance with the law. However, that precedent could be broken if the vast majority of schools continue not to report no sexual assault incidents on campus.
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Why Sex Assault Victims Have To Wait In Wisconsin
A report discusses Wisconsin’s system for investigating sexual assault cases, which forces survivors to travel long distances and wait for hours to find nurses who can perform forensic exams.
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The Toxic State Of Public Discourse And How To Clean It Up
Our guest examines the sorry state of public discourse and shows how polluted, polarized conversations discourage people from taking action on critical issues like climate change. He also talks about how to clear the air and have more effective conversations about tough topics like politics and controversial social issues.
Episode Credits
- Judith Siers-Poisson Host
- Veronica Rueckert Host
- Marika Suval Producer
- Amanda Magnus Producer
- Neena Chaudhry Guest
- Rory Linnane Guest
- James Hoggan Guest
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