U.S. News & World Report - Bipartisan Bill Would Boost College Accountability on Sexual Assault

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By Allie Bidwell

Two lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle on Thursday introduced a bill to combat campus sexual assault that departs slightly from measures already percolating in Congress.

The Hold Accountable and Lend Transparency (HALT) Campus Sexual Violence Act -- introduced by Reps. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., and Patrick Meehan, R-Pa. -- would provide $5 million in additional funding each year for officials in the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to enforce both Title IX and the Clery Act -- two federal laws that respectively prohibit discrimination based on sex and require colleges receiving federal funding to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses. Speier and Meehan first introduced the legislation during the last session of Congress in 2014.

The additional funding could alleviate some pressure the civil rights office is facing, but would still fall short of what many say is needed to improve how quickly and effectively investigations into potential violations of the laws are conducted. A group of Senate Democrats last month released data showing the number of college sexual violence complaints submitted to the office has increased more than 1,000 percent since 2009, and that it's also taking department officials longer to close those cases.

That's in part because the office has faced doing more with less. In an annual report from the Education Department, the Office for Civil Rights highlighted the strain on its workforce as the number of full-time workers has decreased and the number of complaints has increased. Since 2005, the office's workforce has dropped by about 15 percent, and the total number of complaints -- including allegations of discrimination based on sex, race, color, national origin, age and disability -- has increased by more than 80 percent.

Seeming to recognize the hardship, President Barack Obama in his 2016 budget proposal requested an increase in funding for the Office for Civil rights to $131 million, which would allow the office to hire an additional 210 full-time staff members.

The new House bill additionally puts a greater emphasis than other measures on student rights, training and resources. The bill would amend the Higher Education Act to allow students to file a lawsuit if the college or university violated the Clery Act. It would also create an interagency task force between the Department of Education and the Justice Department to give colleges and universities recommendations on preventing and responding to sexual assault and providing resources to survivors, among other things.

"No student should have to fear sexual assault on campus and no parent should fear their child is in danger when they send them to college," Meehan said in a statement. "As a prosecutor, I worked closely with the victims of sexual assault on campus and I saw firsthand the need to improve protections for survivors. This legislation takes sensible steps forward to strengthen protections for victims and it will help them access the resources they need in the wake of attack."

Speier and Meehan's proposal is similar in some ways to the bipartisan Campus Accountability and Safety Act, which was reintroduced in the upper congressional chamber by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Dean Heller, R-Nev., in February. The Senate bill is unique in that it lays out more explicit requirements for support for survivors, such as providing them with confidential advisers. It also requires colleges to enter into memorandums of understanding with law enforcement agencies to specify each party's responsibilities and help them share information.

But like the Senate bill, the House measure would require annual campus climate surveys, increase penalties levied against colleges and universities that violate the Clery Act (from $35,000 to $100,000) and give the Department of Education the authority to fine schools for violating Title IX.

Currently, the Office for Civil Rights can withhold all federal funding from schools that violate Title IX. If that were to happen, students would no longer be able to use their federal financial aid to attend those schools, which is why most federal Title IX investigations result in settlements.

In the bill Speier and Meehan are proposing, there appears to be no cap on the amount the Education Department could fine an institution, as the bill says the amount of a fine "shall be determined by the gravity of the violation" and does not rule out "other remedies available under federal law."

"We have to stop campus sexual assault in its tracks," Speier said. "For too long, higher education institutions have been 'punishing' perpetrators by requiring them to write contrite essays and counseling young women to wear longer skirts -- no wonder we haven't solved the problem. We need real enforcement that will make colleges live up to their obligations under federal law."

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