As a Title IX investigation continues at Dartmouth, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ’88, D-N.Y., announced Monday that she and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., will work together to combat sexual assault on college campuses. As a first step, Gillibrand and McCaskill released a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee requesting $109 million in new federal funds to be used for Clery Act and Title IX enforcement on college campuses, according to an April 7 press release from Gillibrand’s office.
Gillibrand’s communications director Glen Caplin said Gillibrand will introduce legislation about sexual assault on college campuses by the end of the year.
“This appropriation letter was just a first step,” Caplin said.
Though Gillibrand and McCaskill had competing proposals for how to reform the military’s handling of sexual assault, with McCaskill’s passing unanimously after Gillibrand’s was voted down, the pair has joined in their efforts to promote this new initiative.
Gillibrand said in the statement that the requested funds would go to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to ameliorate staffing and funding issues.
The Office for Civil Rights handles over 10,000 complaints a year but does not have a specific staff member who handles Title IX sexual assault complaints, the release said.
The Office of Federal Student Aid’s Compliance Division and the Office for Civil Rights, both subsets of the of the Department of Education, also oversee Clery Act complaints. The press release stated that the Office of Federal Student Aid’s Compliance Division was unable to investigate 63 percent of schools that violate the act, and around one third of the sexual assault policies at nearly 300 schools surveyed do not comply with the Clery Act.
Between 2000 and 2013, due to limited resources, the office had only enough data to fine 21 institutions of higher education, which Caplin attributed to low resources.
Gillibrand’s efforts are unlikely to have an immediate impact on schools currently under investigation for Clery Act and Title IX complaints, Caplin said. The request is part of a broader effort and that change takes time, he added, noting that Gillibrand’s efforts to reform the Pentagon’s handling of sexual assault cases took over a year.
Activists involved in fighting assault on college campuses said that Gillibrand’s proposals are a good first step, but that more work needs to be done to address the issue of sexual assault on college campuses.
Andrea Pino, co-founder of the IX Network and a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said Gillibrand’s announcement has helped draw national attention to the issue.
“For a long time, it was seen as a singular issue problem, as in specific schools that were doing it wrong that was not seen as affecting every college campus,” Pino said.
Annie Clark, co-founder of the IX Network and a UNC alumna, called the attention promising but a preliminary step.
She said proper infrastructure is essential to enforcing laws and combatting the issue, on campuses and within the federal government.
She added that it is essential that the Office for Civil Rights be able to more effectively handle and process complaints. Education and fixing campus climates, she said, are also essential to effectively combatting sexual assault.
“There are laws to ensure that people are treated fairly, but we can’t pass a law to end rape,” she said. “We have to have the two sides working in tandem, the legislative and cultural pieces.”
Holli Weed ’14, who has worked extensively to combat sexual assault on campus, said in an email that supporting survivors by increasing enforcement and taking reports of sexual assault seriously are important parts of prevention.
“I believe that removing boundaries to reporting, consistently investigating reports and providing harsh sanctions for perpetrators of sexual violence are critical components of tackling sexual violence in any setting,” Weed said. “This message is powerful because it makes it more risky for perpetrators to perpetrate and less risky for survivors to come forward.”
Teaching students to invervene in risky situations and providing mental health support for survivors are other essential steps for institutions to take, she said.
Caplin said he is hopeful that the Senate Appropriations Committee will grant Gillibrand and McCaskill’s request, which was co-signed by 12 other senators, for increased funds and that any future bills will have bipartisan support.
Clark said she is optimistic that other senators will join the effort.
“Sexual assault is not a Democratic or Republican issue,” she said. “I’m optimistic in thinking that both sides of the aisle will come together.”
The Office for Civil Rights is currently investigating the College for alleged violations of the Clery Act and Title IX.
