Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act: SaVing Lives or SaVing Face?

Campus Sexual Assault: Future Directions for Research

“…Although there were improvements in terms of IHE response over the previous decade, with almost 70% reporting training for students on CSA, the report determined that "many institutions are failing to comply with the law and best practices in how they handle sexual violence among students" (McCaskill, 2014, p. 1). Other research assessing Campus SaVE implementation among a stratified sample of 435 IHE (Griffin et al, 2016) echoes this result, with only 11% of IHE fully compliant with federal policy and 30% of the IHE meeting just 4 of the 18 identified Campus SaVE compliance criteria (Griffin et al, 2016). Further work is needed to continue to evaluate IHE response to policy using current and detailed measures, particularly as these policies continue to develop in the legislative process.…”

“…A key focus of the Task Force report is the development of comprehensive, detailed sexual misconduct policies, which are important for creating community-level norms to guide individual behavior (Streng & Kamimura, 2015). Although most IHE have an explicit sexual misconduct policy, there is much variation when it comes to the specifics (Griffin, Pelletier, Griffin, & Sloan, 2016; McCaskill, 2014; Streng & Kamimura, 2015). Current guidance recommends including a vetting period in the policy development process as well as regular review and evaluation (Task Force, 2014); however, such an evaluative process has yet to be consistently implemented across IHE.…”

“…In addition to actually having a sexual misconduct policy, there are questions about how the information is communicated to the campus community (Dameron, DeTardo-Bora, & Bora, 2009; Griffin et al, 2016). Studies by Borges, Banyard, and Moynihan (2008) and Potter et al (2016) found that students are better informed about CSA policies, such as consent, when they are engaged in an explicit, active discussion of the policy, yet studies indicate that many schools do not address policies in their prevention programs (DeGue et al, 2014) or require students to endorse that they read their IHE’s policy on sexual violence.…”

“…In addition, there is a need to understand whether different institutional characteristics are related to the level of IHE compliance with federal guidelines and CSA best practices. For example, Griffin et al (2016) found that IHE characteristics, such as geographical region and the size of the student population, were significantly associated with the provision of certain CSA resources. Other key demographic variables should be compared such as private or public status, 2- or 4-year status, religiously affiliated IHE, commuter versus noncommuter campuses, and so on.…”

Widening the Lens: An Ecological Review of Campus Sexual Assault

“…Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight, 2014). Other studies have found that larger campuses are more likely to have required policies and definitions of consent and be more fully compliant with legislation (Graham et al, 2017; Griffin, Pelletier, Griffin, & Sloan, 2017). Public campuses, those with a larger proportion of female students, those with women’s centers on campus, and even those with Reserve Officer Training Club (ROTC) programs were also found to be more fully compliant in these studies, suggesting that the ways in which campuses have engaged with federal legislation are variable and may correlate with institution-level variables.…”