Sexual assault on college campuses: A 50-state survey of criminal sexual assault statutes and their relevance to campus sexual assault.

Abstract

A recent series of highly publicized campus sexual assaults and the questionable responses by the academic institutions where they occurred has led some policymakers and academic administrators to call for legislative and institutional change. For such changes to be effective, academic administrators and legislators need solutions that effectively protect victims, punish perpetrators, and encourage institutional compliance with relevant legislation. Furthermore, there has been significant debate about how much the criminal justice system can and should be involved when sexual assaults occur on college campuses. To address these questions, there needs to be a more thorough understanding of existing state sexual assault laws and their capacity to handle sexual assaults that occur on college campuses. This project identified and systematically examined all U.S. state statutes relating to sexual assault to evaluate to what extent these laws are appropriate and accessible for victims of campus sexual assault. Results revealed that all 50 states have at least 1 criminal statute addressing sexual assault, with a total of 432 statutory subsections being identified for inclusion. Across statutes, key concepts relating to consent and incapacity were often ill defined or undefined, and many of the statutes appear to be poorly suited to handling campus sexual assaults. These findings have implications for the adjudication of campus sexual assaults, and such results can potentially be used to amend existing legislation and inform future legislation.

Exploring Definitions and Prevalence of Verbal Sexual Coercion and Its Relationship to Consent to Unwanted Sex: Implications for Affirmative Consent Standards on College Campuses

“…Nonetheless, within rape law, there has been an evolution of changes that have paved the way for further adaptations to be made. For instance, rape law reformers have successfully been able to remove corroboration requirements, eliminate force and resistance requirements, enact rape shield laws, make marital rape illegal [ 188 , 189 ], include alcohol and/or drug use as a rape tactic [ 173 , 174 ], and in some cases make coercion a tactic parallel to force [ 110 , 125 , 175 ]. All of these changes indicate that moving in the direction of identifying VSC as a criminal act or sexual misconduct on college campuses may not be as impossible as it may seem.…”

“…Moving toward this paradigm of how to view instances of consent resulting from VSC is similar to how scholars and the law (to some extent) have begun to address drug- or alcohol-facilitated sexual assault. It took many decades for incapacitation to be considered a sexual assault perpetration tactic and that women’s behavior (e.g., voluntary alcohol consumption or consent while drunk) was not sufficient to absolve the responsibility of the person initiating sexual activity [ 173 ]. In fact, the FBI recently changed their definition of rape to include alcohol and/or drug use as a rape tactic and they also acknowledged that rape could occur without physical force [ 174 ].…”

The Role of Title IX Coordinators on College and University Campuses

“…In terms of student conduct boards and appeal panels, there is no empirical research that examines who hears sexual assault cases and meets with victims and perpetrators. There is also little research that assesses whether Title IX coordinators are creating mandatory training sessions for those handling cases at the campus-level, especially given that one study discovered that approximately 30% of universities did not train the persons on the hearing panels [ 11 ].…”

Online Dating and the Risk of Sexual Assault to College Students

“…The federal civil law, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, requires higher educational institutions to address sexual violence (DeMatteo, Galloway, Arnold, & Patel, 2015). The law requires employees within the higher educational institution to respond appropriately to reports of sexual violence and to train employees in how to respond appropriately to reports of sexual violence (DeMatteo, Galloway, Arnold, & Patel, 2015). The United States Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault issued recommendations to address sexual violence on campus as a priority, includes services for victims (The White House, 2017).…”