Campus Sexual Assault Activism: Link Overload

I can’t even wrap my head around everything that’s going on right now. So many students doing awesome work, and in the midst of it all SAFER has endorsed the Campus SaVE Act (more on that soon). It looks like Sexual Assault Activism Month is going to end on a number of high notes. Just look at all of this:

Washington University, Stanford University, Brandeis, and Swarthmore all made policy changes in light of the OCR “Dear Colleague” letter, sparking some campus dialogue on the issue. UMass and the University of Vermont are making some important changes as well.

After three years of investigating, student journalists at the University of Maryland found that in the past ten years, only four students were found responsible for sexual assault.

The Columbia Spectator has been running a lot of great material on campus sexual assault, but this piece on the disciplinary process is a must-read. This lengthy article from the Georgetown Hoya is also quite impressive.

I’ve been collecting stories for a week on the fantastic action being taken at the University of Oklahoma. Last week students were celebrating the results of their hard work, as the school’s president agreed to increase the statute of limitations for reporting a sexual assault from 30 days (!!!!! what???) to one year. He has also said he will work on implementing mandatory sexual assault education for incoming students. The student movement started when one survivor came forward with her story about coming up against that ridiculous statute.

I’m a little behind on this but: The USC Walk-Out for a Safer Campus? Yes.

Students at Boston University are saying that they don’t know how to access sexual assault services or what’s in the school’s policy, and they want better education on the issue.

In response to the Title IX investigation pending against the school, Yale has put together a committee to review sexual assault policies and procedures. There are no students on the committee, but the school has arranged strategy sessions between faculty, staff, and students to get student feedback.

With all of this momentum, major news outlets are paying attention, with both Time and CNN running stories on campus sexual assault, and the NY Times taking a position. What’s next?

Originally posted at Change Happens