White House talks about sexual assault on college campuses

The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault issued Monday its first report outlining a comprehensive plan to address sexual assault on college campuses.

President Barack Obama created the task force in January to “strengthen
federal enforcement efforts and provide schools with additional tools to help combat sexual assault,” according to the report.
 
Nationally, one in five college women have been sexually assaulted, with 75 to 80 percent of reported cases citing the perpetrator as someone they knew prior to the attack, according to the report.

Between 2010 and 2012, the IU Office of the Executive Vice President for
University Academic Affairs documented 54 cases of forcible sexual offenses on campus.

The plan outlines a four-pronged approach that begins with identifying the extent of sexual assault across universities using campus climate surveys.

The federal government has agreed to provide schools with toolkits to
conduct the survey next year.

Leslie Fasone, assistant dean for women’s and gender affairs, said the University is already working to create a survey that assesses sexual behavior among students.

Fasone has been collaborating with other faculty, including Justin Garcia, assistant research scientist at the Kinsey Institute.

“We’ve been, over the past year, doing our own research to find out what kinds of sexual misconduct surveys have other schools done, what resources out there exist,” Fasone said.

The federal report also cites prevention and engaging men as part of the strategy to combat the issue.

Public service announcements and bystander intervention programs are recommended to empower men to prevent these incidents from occurring.

Faculty members and student organizations at IU have already adopted these measures to educate students in what they can do to stop dangerous situations.

Garcia’s expertise in the college “hook-up” culture has provided a key link to communicating with men in bystander prevention presentations.

“The idea is talking about hooking up is more engaging and less threatening for men than the simple message of sexual assault,” Fasone said. “Something else that we’re working on is that we really need to figure out how we engage them to empower them to step in and prevent incidents from occurring.”

Federal officials have also created a new website, notalone.gov, as a tool to support the report’s initiatives. Students are able to file a complaint online if their university is failing to adequately address sexual assault.

Survivors of sexual assault can locate support services in their area using their zip code. The IU Board of Trustees has also created a Student Welfare webpage with
campus resources that can address sexual assault, Fasone  said. She said the webpage was created this semester.

In their mission statement, the IU Board of Trustees said they wish to build a community that rejects sexual assault completely.

By improving access to resources and continuing collaboration among different organizations, Fasone believes the trend of sexual assault can be reversed.

“We have all these pockets of resources and people who are doing great work on this campus,” Fasone said. “It’s a matter of helping students navigate those resources and collectively working together to create a campus culture that creates change.”

Carmen Heredia Rodriguez