More Than A Magazine, A Movement
More than half of sexual assaults on campus occur between orientation and Thanksgiving—a period known as the “Red Zone.” And with the amount of new students on campus doubling as a result of COVID-19, these numbers risk being doubled as well.
With campus awareness and mental health support, we as students, faculty, family and community can reclaim Red Zones.
Brown University faces a class-action lawsuit by four current and former students—all survivors of campus sexual harassment and assault—who claim the school failed to protect them from harm “despite knowledge that sexual assault on its campus is endemic.”
Every Voice Coalition, founded in December 2016, is a college student-run organization with goals to implement preventative and legislative measures to eliminate sexual violence on college campuses. In order to empower students to tackle policy-related issues, they stress that the legislation is student-written to center the needs of those most directly affected.
Earlier this month, the Department of Education began public hearings to determine improvements to Title IX enforcement. But less noticed are the actions the Biden administration is taking behind the scenes to strengthen Title IX protections for students experiencing sexual harassment and assault.
Earlier this month, I testified at the Department of Education’s hearings to re-examine Title IX. But as a thriving survivor of campus sexual assault and coercion, child sexual misconduct, and organizational trauma, I was jarred and disappointed by the process of testifying. As the administration works to overhaul Title IX, we want results that are trauma-informed—and the process to get there should be as well.
On Monday, the Department of Education began public hearings to determine improvements to Title IX enforcement.
“They say they fear a witch-hunt, yet have never been the witches; even as we step forward to accuse them, that burden still falls upon us. … It seems their cries were heard when the Trump administration revised Title IX last year.”
When it comes to rebuilding the badly broken U.S. education system and preventing violence against women and girls, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have their work cut out for them.
The current administration will take a polar-opposite approach to the Trump administration’s chaos, cruelty and disfunction.
The outgoing administration made it more difficult for victims of assault, harassment and discrimination to assert rights and get their day in court. What will Biden’s priorities be, how will he be able to accomplish them and—most importantly—what can we expect to see in the coming months and years?
“Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration are dead set on making schools more dangerous for everyone.”
Betsy DeVos’s new Title IX regulations make it much harder to discipline students accused of sexual misconduct than those accused of other much lesser serious infractions, such as plagiarism or substance abuse on campus. They have been described as “the antithesis of what Title IX was intended to do.” And they’re being taken to court.
“When we gloss over the icky parts of being a girl and focus on how strong, equal and powerful they are … When we don’t address the unpleasant and creepy experiences that are a girl’s inheritance, we do them a disservice. We contribute to their confusion.”
