Less Safe in the Ivory Tower: Campus Sexual Assault Policy in the Trump Administration

ABSTRACT

Since the late 20th century, the federal government has regulated colleges’ and universities’ handling of campus sexual and gender-based violence (CSGBV). Although the arc of history has bent toward establishing greater protections for victims of such violence, new proposed regulation by the U.S. Department of Education under the Trump administration focuses more heavily on ensuring due process rights for students accused of CSGBV. Most recently, in November 2018, U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos submitted a proposed rule change to the regulation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. This article provides the historical context for this most recent proposed federal regulation of CSGBV and discusses the criticism of this proposal that, if it is implemented, students would become less safe in the ivory tower.

KEYWORDS:

• Campus sexual assault
• gender-based violence
• Title IX

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We use the term “campus sexual and gender-based violence” (CSGBV) to generally refer to acts that are encompassed by the terms “sexual harassment,” “sexual assault,” “sexual misconduct,” “intimate partner violence,” “stalking” and the various other terms used in the sources we reference. Where appropriate, we use the term that is used in the documents we reference.

2. This is the term used for CSGBV in the 2017 Dear Colleague Letter and 2017 Q&A on Campus Sexual Misconduct. Sexual misconduct includes “dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking” (OCR, 2017b, p. 2).

3. The participating organizations include End Rape on Campus, National Women’s Law Center, Girls Inc., Liberty Education Forum, National Center for Transgender Equality, Rape Abuse Incest National Network, SurvJustice, and Human Rights Campaign (U.S. Department of Education, 2017).

4. National Coalition for Men Carolinas, Families Advocating for Campus Equality, and Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (U.S. Department of Education (2017)).

5. https://regulations.gov/docketBrowser?rpp=50&so=DESC&sb=postedDate&po=0&dct=PS&D=ED-2018-OCR-0064.