The Title IX Movement Against Campus Sexual Harassment

Author(s):  
Nancy Chi Cantalupo

Beginning in 2009, hundreds of thousands of students and their allies began to mobilize against campus sexual assault, organizing around the groundbreaking civil rights statute, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and achieving remarkable progress in advancing gender equality in only about a decade. Moving from the Title IX movement’s genesis during the Obama administration to the movement’s direct-action protests and litigation challenging regulations issued in May 2020 by then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, this chapter tells the story of how Title IX and the student movement interacted from 2009 to 2020. During these years, the movement not only weathered backlash but also influenced later feminist movements such as #MeToo and nonfeminists’ understanding of sexual harassment, demonstrating the continued power and promise of both feminist law and feminist organizing.

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 296-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Madden

Purpose While universities continue to grow increasingly sophisticated in their communication functions, issues like sexual assault continue to pose a challenge. One reason is that these issues are emotional, complex, and often only dealt with at the point that they have become a crisis for the institution. The purpose of this paper is to understand the role that dialogue can play in proactively communicating about issues of sexual assault. Design/methodology/approach This study utilized 32 in-depth interviews with university officials from 21 different universities across the USA with responsibility for communicating about issues of sexual assault, including Title IX officers, victims advocate services, student affairs, and university communications. Findings Issues managers worked to create opportunities for dialogue on their campus communities by highlighting shared values. Within a dialogic framework, university issues managers were creating spaces for dialogue and developing alternative forms of engagement in an effort to empower students with the necessary skills to engage in dialogue with their peers. There was a recognition that dialogue is most effective when it is peer-to-peer vs coming from an authoritative or administrative position. Issues managers helped students to develop the skills necessary for engaging in dialogue with each other. Originality/value To advance public relations scholarship, there is a need to consider emotional and gendered issues that are often stigmatized. This can help practitioners to develop better, and proactive, communication strategies for handling issues of sexual assault as to avoid negative media attention and work to change organizational culture.


Affilia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-412
Author(s):  
Molly C. Driessen

The purpose of this study is to conduct a feminist-based policy analysis to examine the role of power in campus sexual assault policies. This research investigated the role of power in campus policies that are in response to addressing sexual assault using a feminist policy analysis framework. McPhail’s (2003) Feminist-Based Policy Analysis Framework was used to study the policy-setting documents authored by the United States (U.S.) Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault that was established in 2014. Together, these documents encompass the federal guidelines for college campuses’ compliance, rights, and responsibility under Title IX. The Framework provides four questions to consider when analyzing the role of power within a policy. Several strengths of the policies are identified as well as tension between the power of institutions versus the power of student survivors, specifically in mandatory reporting policies. Implications for social work research, practice, and policy are explored along with identifying the study’s limitations and future research suggestions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 311-333
Author(s):  
Michele Landis Dauber ◽  
Meghan O. Warner

Despite a long history of reform efforts, college students remain vulnerable to sexual harassment and assault on campus. This article surveys that history from the 1970s to the present, including a flurry of enforcement activity under President Obama and a backlash and reversed course under Trump. Many of the systems—for example law, education, and public health—designed to ameliorate the epidemic of campus sexual assault have failed to do so. These failures have been particularly pronounced for victims who experience multiple intersecting inequalities. The resulting frustration with legal remedies through campus Title IX processes and the criminal and civil justice system has spurred a new interest in strategies to prevent sexual assault in the first place. Recent political developments, including the #MeToo movement, suggest a potential for democratic political accountability to make progress where legal reform efforts and campus prevention programming have thus far been unsuccessful.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne C. Russ ◽  
Dani M. Moffit ◽  
Jamie L. Mansell

Sexual harassment is a sensitive and pervasive topic in higher education. Programs and institutions have the responsibility to protect the students from sexual harassment under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, 2011). While much attention has been focused toward on-campus interactions (i.e., professor/student, student/student), many students participate in off-campus fieldwork and internships associated with coursework, where the students are still protected under Title IX. The purpose of this discussion is to define sexual harassment, summarize research regarding sexual harassment in a fieldwork setting, consider how sexual harassment affects students, and identify resources to help programs identify and respond to sexual harassment.


2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 16-17
Author(s):  
Sarah Gibbard Cook
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Uta M. Stelson ◽  
Theresa Neimann

Most administrators of colleges and universities are aware of the statistics about the prevalence of campus sexual assault and rape. Campus sexual assault and rape have the potential for ruining the lives of both victims and perpetrators. The authors suggest that educators, administrators, and strategic leadership teams need to understand how social norms theory, sports, and rape culture play into the prevalence of campus sexual assault and rape on students' ability to thrive in and complete college and the need to adopt a proactive stance whereby they can help to offset the negative outcomes for the students involved while at the same time focusing on the legal and risk management impact of neglecting to establish and/or non-enforcement of policies to both prevent and address campus sexual assault and rape. Many educators and administrators fail to understand the potential costs of Title IX violations and benefits to colleges and universities from the violence against women laws, especially the Amended Clery Act. Lastly, recommendations are forthcoming in helping leaders and risk management employees be proactive and strategically plan to reduce and address the occurrences of campus sexual assault and rapes.


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