The Importance Of Sexual Assault

Sexual assault is defined by the department of justice as: any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape. Women aged 18-24, in college, are three times greater at risk than the average woman any age. (RAINN). The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has 246 ongoing investigations into how 195 colleges and universities handled sexual assault under Title IX. (Huffington Post). Many ask, Why on college campuses? Why have these statistics been rising? For a rapist or an assaulter, college is

An American is sexually assaulted every 98 seconds, and every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Only 310 out of 1,000 assaults are reported, but only 6 out of 1,000 perpetrators end up in prison (RAINN). Although sexual assault is egregious, these perpetrators are less likely to end up in prison than other criminals. The reason that is seems to be that victims do not report their cases. So why are sexual assault victims afraid to share their stories? Victims often do not report their assault because of many reasons, including the fear of reprisal, the belief that the police could not and would not do anything about the case, or because they simply did not know how to approach an official.

Sexual assault always has and always will be a serious problem in society. Despite the fact that, according to sources like the RAINN organization, the amount of reported sexual assault cases in the United States has dropped by more than half since 1993, sexual assault itself remains a problem in the United States. Just very recently, eight women have now come forward and accused longtime news anchor Charlie Rose of sexual misconduct in the workplace. This latest incident is one of many that have been reported within the recent months against those of a high socioeconomic standing in society, entertainers and politicians who abused their positions of power in order to harass and harm their female colleagues. These victims waited until now to report these incidents due to the fear that they will not be believed and that justice will not be delivered against those in such powerful positions. They only now come forward due to the unity they have found in each other against these abusers. To understand the uncertainty these women faced in their decision, this issue must be looked upon sociologically, using each of the three sociological perspectives of functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism to overview the various factors like race, gender, and social class that played a part in delaying their decision and explain why and how the justice system has failed in this way.

Last week, the White House released a short, celebrity packed, 60-second public service announcement (PSA) on the topic of sexual assault. 1 is 2 Many addressed those who are in control of preventing sexual assault as its intended audience was those who can put a stop to sexual violence: the perpetrators or would-be offenders. Although this one minute announcement completed the task of bringing sexual assault to the forefront of discussion, it failed to encompass the central issues concerning the culture of sexual assault: societal misperceptions, the victims, and the justice system. Sexual assault is a phenomenon that has been around for centuries; the culture of sexual assault is rooted in both legal practices and societal perceptions.

In 2011 the Department of Education released a “Dear Colleague” letter aimed at reminding educators of a fact established by the Supreme Court: under Title IX, schools much ensure survivors of sexual assault can stay in school and learn safely and notified colleges and university that the federal government was going to be aggressive on sexual misconduct. However, under DeVos’s new ruling the federal government is pulling back their investigation into sexual assault on college campuses.

Start blaming the system, not the victim. Sexual assault is a crime that is very common, yet the punishment perpetrators receive is not as harsh as it needs to be to reduce the occurrence of these crimes. Laws concerning sexual crimes have been edited over decades to be stricter however, sex offenders typically receive little or no punishment. Sexual Assault is defined as any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient (“Sexual Assault”). Victims of sexual assault are often blamed as the reason for the crime being committed while the blame is taken away from the offender. Harsher punishment must be enacted on sex offenders because the victims suffer conflict from the crime throughout their

When presented with this project, we chose to focus on sexual assault because it is a harsh realistic nightmare that poses reoccurring issues in our society. The goal of our campaign is to not only spread awareness about sexual assault, but also to educate about the topic. Although sexual assault is a very common occurrence, it is a sensitive topic; which leads to people and victims feeling hesitant to talk about it, causing so many cases to remain untouched and victims silenced. For our project, we decided to focus on reaching out to our peers since most of them are in college or ages 18-24, where sexual assault is at an all time high. However, sexual assault is not limited strictly to college campuses or other professional academic settings so everything that we are posting relates to anyone – because of the sad truth that sexual assault can happen anytime, to anyone at anywhere.

The article begins by situating university disciplinary proceedings legally and historically. It then turns to the Dear Colleague letter. It discusses whether OCR violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by not going through notice and process. Assuming that the DCL is procedurally valid, the next section asks whether it is substantively so. Applying the tests set forth in Skidmore v Swift & Co. , Chevron v National Resources Council, and Bowles v Seminole Rock & Sand Co., the Article concludes that courts should not uphold OCR’s interpretation of Title IX. With universities free to disregard the DCL, the article concludes by discussing how universities can and should handle these cases while still remaining in compliance with Title IX.

Sexual assault is defined as any vaginal, oral, or anal penetration that is forced upon another, regardless of sex and sexual orientation, using any object or body part. The issue of sexual assault in America is primarily encouraged by rape culture. Women Against Violence Against Women is an organization that defines rape culture as a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. The acceptance of rape culture, rape myths, and the disregard for sexual consent also allow for the perpetuation of sexual assault against women on college campuses. Recent examples of sexual assault on college campuses show how prominent this issue has become and how hostile campuses have become for female students. Some examples include the University of Southern California’s “Gullet Report,” Miami University of Ohio’s “Top Ten Ways to Get Away with Rape,” and a sexual assault on the campus of Kansas University. Sexual assault is perpetuated by the acceptance of rape myths and rape culture, lack of effective sexual education, and the disregard for consent. The solution to this issue lies with defeating rape culture, increasing awareness and funding for campus sexual assault crisis centers, and enacting more prevention programs on campus.

Sexual assault has mistakenly become a partisan issue, and due to that, preponderance of evidence in relation to the “Dear Colleague letter” and Title IX in relation to Betsy DeVos new policy advocating a more at large based on evidence approach has fallen under debate. As page 1 paragraph 6 of How Campus Sexual Assault Became So Politicized, “While colleges have historically neglected student sexual-assault victims by failing to adequately punish perpetrators, many believe the Obama administration may have gone too far with its reforms. In 2011, Obama’s Education Department issued what’s become known as the “Dear Colleague” letter,

In the article, high sexual prime of the hundreds youth on campus together with alcohol and other drugs are blamed for these heinous acts and it has thus become an “accepted” cultural norm. Sexual assault, which the article defines as a forceful compellation of someone to engage in unwanted sexual activities with another, and it can range from kissing to penetration, is on the rampant increase and hence raising nationwide concerns. These concerns and opinions, however, divide the nation along political, gender, civic, and cultural lines. Meanwhile no exact factors have been linked to the rising cases of sexual assault on campus even though alcohol, male college sexuality and age have proven to be a factor. On this, divisive positions also emerge but no one seems to answer the question why it is so frequent and rampant in nearly all college campuses.

In 2011, the Office for Civil Rights issued “Dear Colleague Letter” which aims to clarify case reporting, provide resources for administrators and victims, and better explain the role universities play in the case process (Rammell, 2014). Another step in resolving the issue of Title IX compliance is a document recently issued by the Office for Civil Rights. In this document, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (2014) answers questions and further educates college and university administrators on correct Title IX compliance. NASPA also reviewed this document and commended it as breakthrough document that will work to better prevent sexual discrimination and respond to Title IX cases (Smith, Sun, & Sponsler, 2014). In addition to NASPA’s stamp of approval, the Association for Student Conduct Administration (“Student Conduct Administration,” 2014) recently issued a White Paper on Title IX compliance that details student conduct best practices, resolution methods, and ways to best cater these methods to various institution types. While the Office for Civil Rights is taking the lead on Title IX compliance education, higher education and student affairs professionals play a large role in also ensuring Title IX

Most people don’t want to talk about sexual assault. They may see it as a horrible topic that should be kept in the dark, or something that isn’t allowed to be discussed at the dinner table. What most people don’t know, is that anyone, anywhere in the world can be assaulted sexually whether they are disabled or not. This crime doesn’t discriminate against gender, age, race, or even sexuality like some do. That’s not saying that some predators don 't prefer a certain type by any means, but generally it doesn’t discriminate. Statistically proven there are more people who are disabled that are sexually assaulted than people who aren’t disabled in anyway shape or form. A person that is disabled could be impaired in their vision, hearing, movement, thinking, communicating, remembering, and so on. Since ALS is not only a disease, but also causes the victim to lose the ability to move, and they have a hard time communicating with people because they develop a shortness of breath, an ALS patient is classified as disabled, which means that they have a higher chance of being sexually assaulted. This can be seen in fully examining sexual assault, it’s statistics and the effect that it has on the victim; disability and why it’s more common within sexually assaulted victims; and how ALS ties into both of them.

Women, girls, men, and boys are vulnerable victims of sexual assaults every day in our country. While females experience much higher rates of sexual assaults than males. The problem that this country faces is the lack of being able to track rapist, in addition to the victims that chose not to report their assault of being raped to the police. Issues of under reporting comes from the victims with multiple reasons that hinders them from reporting these heinous criminal acts. Thus, the sad realization is that the perpetrator is usually some one that you know, that you would of never of thought that they could and would, and do sexually assault you.

Sexual assault and rape are on-going issues plaguing college campuses all across the nation. In part, I believe this is due to a lack of education on what sexual assault actually is. All too often, victims are leaving these situations feeling confused about something that they will forever deem "a weird night". It often isn't until much later that they realize what happened to them was a violation of their body and of their rights.