A bill aiming to protect the rights of both the survivor and the accused when combating sexual assault on campuses was reintroduced to the Senate last Thursday. The revised bill, titled the Campus Safety and Accountability Act, contains proposals outlining initiatives for campuses to adjudicate sexual assault cases.
A bipartisan coalition of six Democrats and six Republicans introduced the bill. Sponsors include Dartmouth alum Kirsten Gillibrand ’88, D-NY, and Kelly Ayotte, R-NH.
The original version of the bill was introduced last summer but never came to a vote before the 113th session of Congress ended.
Among the proposals suggested by the bill is one amending the punishment for colleges and universities that are found to have violated Title IX. Currently, institutions found in violation face losing all of their federal funding. In contrast, the bill’s proposals will allow the federal government to fine institutions up to one percent of their operating budget for each violation.
Alex Arnold ’10, an organizing member of the sexual violence and harassment advocacy group Dartmouth Change, said that the bill could lead to better enforcement of Title IX and the Clery Act.
“There’s basically two options now for penalizing schools for violations,” Arnold said. “It’s either there is no fine or the school loses all of its federal funding, which would be catastrophic for many students who are on federal-funded aid. Having the ability to fine for violations is important because it gives Clery and Title IX more weight.”
The bill also proposes requiring colleges and universities to publish results of a biennial climate survey on student perceptions and experiences of sexual assault and related dating violence. According to Arnold, the surveys will provide more insight and data about what is happening on campuses. She said that the data released in Clery reports is often only a fraction of the number of incidents that have actually happened on campus.
“We know that the majority of assaults are never disclosed to individuals who report Clery numbers,” Arnold said. “The survey will help get the real numbers, and once you start doing it every couple of years, you can start tracking progress and measuring the impact of different initiatives. You can take a more rigorous, scientific approach to what’s going on on campus.”
Dartmouth’s Office of the General Counsel said in a statement to The Dartmouth that while they have not had the opportunity to review the revised bill in detail, it seems to improve on the original version in many ways. They declined to comment further at this time.
New Hampshire Sexual Assault Resource Team coordinator Kathleen Kimball said in an email that the legislation’s effect in New Hampshire will depend on the final bill that is passed. New Hampshire has a statewide protocol for “best practice” responses which is amended to stay up-to-date with federal and state legislation.
Kimball said that if the bill leads to significant changes in statewide protocol, training must follow to inform those who would be responsible for implementation. In the most recent update, the New Hampshire SART program conducted over 30 workshops around the state for those working with adult cases of sexual assault. The workshops would likely expand to include campuses and relevant administrators for these updates, Kimball said.
One controversial aspect of the bill is the requirement of college-provided confidential advisors to guide survivors through the resources and reporting options available to them. While the provision attempts to aid survivors, Arnold pointed to an inherent conflict of interest between aiding survivors and working for the school.
“It’s not that the coordinator has different interests, but they report to others,” Arnold said. “There’s friction between supporting survivors and maintaining the reputation of the school, and that’s unavoidable.”
Kimball said that she expects the state Attorney General’s Office to work with the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence to craft language for incorporating crisis center victim services and the “confidential advisor” parts of the bill.
Government professor Linda Fowler, whose areas of expertise include Congress and legislative politics, said that the bill is unusual in that it comes from a genuine cross-party coalition that is led by women. Fowler said that women in the Senate have been some of the few legislators that collaborate across party lines to achieve compromises that both sides can accept.
Independent middle class women are an important demographic to address heading into the 2016 midterm elections, Fowler said. The issue of sexual assault is prominent to them as they are the ones sending their daughters to colleges. The bill has a strong chance of passing the Senate, Fowler said, because both parties want to appeal to that demographic. In addition, both parties need to respond to the sense of concern from universities regarding how to address sexual assault.
“What the negotiation is about is finding a balance where the government isn’t exerting the heavy hand over universities,” Fowler said. “That’s something conservatives can embrace because they don’t like regulation, and something liberals can embrace because they don’t like bureaucrats messing with universities.”
Correction appended: March 9, 2015
The original version of this article represented Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, as a democrat. The article has been corrected.
