The White House initiative against sexual assaults on university and college campuses is a welcome and long overdue effort. It could bring necessary accountability and transparency to a problem that has been kept in the shadows. Too many women have been victimized and too many campus officials and other students have looked the other way. It’s time for that to end.
As part of the initiative, the Education Department issued a list last week of 55 universities it is investigating over their handling of sexual abuse complaints under Title IX, which prohibits gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funds. Prior to that report, the department would confirm such an investigation when asked, but students and others were often unaware of them. The department said from now on it will keep an updated list of schools facing such an investigation and make it available upon request.
It’s important to do so: Citing research, the Obama administration has said that one in five female college students is assaulted. The Washington Post noted that the sexual assault campaign is a response to growing outrage at incidents reported in recent years at some of the nation’s most prestigious schools, such as Amherst College in Massachusetts and Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
All schools need to be sure they do that and give the concept more than lip service. Sexual assaults occur at most schools, and it is too easy to brush away complaints or cover them up, especially when they involve high-profile student athletes in popular programs, as has happened.
There is no excuse for that, just as there is no excuse for the violence that has victimized so many young women and men as well. Yes, it’s complicated: Drinking often is involved, and many assaults are never reported. Nevertheless, many schools need to do a better job of investigating complaints and of educating their students about the true nature of sexual violence and its consequences.
Schools on the list included big public universities such as Ohio State University, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Arizona State University as well as private schools such as Knox College in Illinois, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and Catholic University of America in the District of Columbia. Ivy League schools Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth are also on the list.
“We hope this increased transparency will spur community dialogue about this important issue,” Catherine E. Lhamon, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement, adding that a school’s appearance on the list does not mean that it has violated the law but that an investigation is ongoing.
We encourage the department to be as transparent as possible in these cases, and we urge schools to do the same. The answer to bringing this issue out of the shadows is simple: Shine more light.
Two days before the list came out, the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault issued a 20-page report urging colleges to address sexual assault issues and providing guidelines for doing so.
The report recommended that universities and colleges start by identifying the problem through comprehensive “campus climate survey” of students, engage men in the discussion and respond effectively when an assault occurs. Those are all good initial steps.
“Colleges and universities can no longer turn a blind eye or pretend rape and sexual assault doesn’t occur on their campuses,” Vice President Joe Biden said last week as the report was released. “We need to provide survivors with more support and we need to bring perpetrators to more justice and we need colleges and universities to step up.”
Biden also said this to the Huffington Post: “It’s not good enough not to be an abuser. The overwhelming majority of men are not abusers, but they still feel like … prisoners of social status, which says if a man is mistreating his girlfriend, another man has no right to intervene. We’ve got to change this vast middle of the male population to say, ‘You have an affirmative obligation to intervene.’”
He’s right, and what he said applies to individuals as well as schools.
— Copley News Service
