Politics, knowledge, and sexual assault: public perceptions of Trump-era Title IX proceedings

ABSTRACT

In 2020, the Trump administration issued new guidance concerning Title IX proceedings; one controversial change was the emphasis on greater confrontation between complainants and respondents during the grievance process. Little is known concerning public perceptions of these reforms, which diverge from previous federal guidance. To that end, we explore three questions. First, to what extent was the public aware of changes to Title IX? Second, does the public think colleges can safely implement confrontational grievance procedures, or do they view such proceedings skeptically? Last, what factors are associated with beliefs about confrontational features of Title IX? Analysis indicates that there are conditional effects of political ideology on levels of knowledge about the Title IX changes on attitudes toward grievance proceedings. Additionally, other demographic correlates – age, sex, and educational attainment – are associated with perceptions. Implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Title IX
• sexual assault
• campus crime

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Cognitive testing on the questions was carried out via online convenience samples on Amazon’s MTurk service. Various versions of the questions were tested, and the ones used in analysis reflected the wording that led respondents to report an understanding of the questions that was closest to the intent of the researchers.

2. Logistic regression models were run using Huber-White Sandwiched Robust Standard Errors. Stata uses these robust standard errors by default when producing population weights.

3. Logit models were estimated both with and without population weights. There were substantive differences between the two models, so the weighted model was used to better approximate a representative sample.

4. Of the total initial sample (N = 1,003), there were few cases that were missing on predictors or controls alone (n = 23; 2.3% of N). An additional 91 cases were missing on the outcome variable. Listwise deletion is preferred over multiple imputation techniques to address missing that is primarily on the outcome variable (Pepinsky 2018).

5. Amongst other benefits, the margins command produces results in the form of predicted probabilities rather than logit coefficients or odds ratios, which is preferred as they better represent substantive effect size than logit coefficients (Landerman, Mustillo, and Land 2011). Additionally, predicted probabilities are more robust to scaling issues brought about by adding new variables (Long and Mustillo 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christina Mancini

Christina Mancini, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Assistant Chair of Criminal Justice at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. She received her doctoral degree from Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice in 2009. Dr. Mancini has published over thirty articles in Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, Criminology, Crime & Delinquency, the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, and other crime and policy journals. Her current research examines sex offender policy, public opinion, race and perceptions about offending, and violent victimization. She is the author of two books Sex Crime, Offenders, and Society: A Critical Look at Sexual Offending and Policy, 2nd Ed. (2021, Carolina Academic Press) and Campus Crime and Safety (2015, Kendall Hunt).

Dan Cassino

Dan Cassino, Ph.D., is a Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) in Madison, New Jersey, and the Executive Director of the FDU Poll. He received his doctorate from Stony Brook in 2005, and did post-doctoral work at Princeton University before coming to FDU. He is the author of several books, most recently, Gender Threat: American Masculinity in the Face of Change, (with Yasemin Besen-Cassino), published by Stanford University Press in 2021.

Robert D. Lytle

Robert D. Lytle, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His research interests are generally related to societal responses to crime. More specifically, his recent work has explored the criminal justice policy processes, public opinion about crime and justice, and the efficacy of various correctional policies and procedures.