In the Eye of the Reformer: Higher Education Personnel Perspectives on Campus Sexual Assault Policy Implementation

ABSTRACT

Despite recent attention to campus sexual assault (CSA), we know little about how institutions of higher education (IHE) have approached policy reform. Using anonymous web-based survey responses of 190 staff, faculty, and administrators from IHEs, we examined priorities that guided CSA policy implementation, as well as characteristics that explain attitudes toward CSA policy reforms. Respondents were significantly more likely to think policies had improved than to think that CSA is exaggerated or feel frustrated by the process of implementing CSA reforms. Respondents were also more likely to name due process and fairness as a high priority on their campus than creating a victim-centered response or managing the campus’ public image, suggesting that IHEs have carefully considered due process protections as they have implemented policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Title IX
• campus sexual assault
• college
• university
• sexual assault

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carrie A. Moylan

Carrie A. Moylan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Michigan State University School of Social Work and a member of the MSU Research Consortium on Gender-Based Violence. Dr. Moylan has 20 years of experience in the gender-based violence field, both as a practitioner and as a researcher. Dr. Moylan’s program of research focuses on the promotion of effective, evidence-based, and trauma-informed interventions, policies, and services aimed at preventing sexual violence and responding to the needs of survivors. Currently, she is engaged in research examining campus sexual assault policy implementation at colleges and universities and exploring campus-level risk factors. Dr. Moylan is currently funded by the National Institute of Justice to evaluate a web-based crisis hotline for sexual assault survivors.

Amy Hammock

Amy Hammock, PhD, MSW is Assistant Professor of Social Welfare and Core Faculty Member in the Program in Public Health at Stony Brook University. Her research focuses on culturally-competent methods of prevention and response to interpersonal violence and sexual assault. As part of this research agenda, she studies how college and university personnel develop and enact policies to prevent and respond to sexual violence on their campuses. Dr. Hammock also investigates the particular ways that sexual violence manifests and is responded to differently among subgroups within the population (including young adults, racial/ethnic minorities, and immigrants), and how these differences affect the development and implementation of effective community-level interventions. Dr. Hammock teaches courses in integrated health policy, planning and implementing community health programs, and qualitative research methods.

Melanie L. Carlson

Melanie L. Carlson is a fourth year doctoral student in the School of Social Work at Michigan State University. She received her MSW from the University of Georgia with a focus on community empowerment, program development and non-profit management. She spent 5 years working in domestic violence shelters in Atlanta and the D.C. metro area. Her research interests encompass the phenomenon of gender-based violence and how structural barriers inhibit many survivors in poverty from living without violence and abuse, which disproportionately effects those in marginalized populations.