A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday played host to a wide-ranging discussion of campus sexual assault, and one question factored prominently into the two-hour-plus session: What can the federal government do better when it comes to colleges and sexual assault?
“We’re not sure we know what we can do to help you,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Senate education committee, which held the hearing as part of a series focused on the forthcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. “We certainly don’t want to interfere with your efforts” on campus, he said.
The committee examined broad concerns about colleges’ handling of sexual-assault cases as well as specific provisions of proposed legislation known as the Campus Accountability and Safety Act. The bill was initially introduced in the Senate a year ago, and a revised version was reintroduced in February.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat and a primary sponsor of the legislation, touted the revised measure as carrying “significant improvements.” A bipartisan group of 33 senators — 12 Republicans and 21 Democrats — have signed on as cosponsors, she said.
Among other requirements, the measure would direct campuses to designate confidential advisers for victims, sign memoranda of understanding with local law-enforcement agencies, and bolster due-process rights for accused students.
Confidential Advisers
Senator McCaskill said on Wednesday that the requirement for campuses to designate a confidential adviser for students “may be the most important part of our legislation.”
The advisers, she said, would be able to guide victims through their options for reporting their cases to their college or the police.
Ms. McCaskill said that role is significant because it “empowers a student who’s assaulted on a Friday night to know on that same Friday night who he or she can call and where he or she can go for good information and confidential support.”
Some colleges already have people serving in a similar role. Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California, said during her testimony that each UC campus has hired at least one confidential advocate.
But Mollie Benz Flounlacker, associate vice president for federal relations at the Association of American Universities, said the legislation’s move to involve advisers directly in an investigation, even to support students, could compromise advisers’ role.
That duty, she said, could “increase the likelihood of the adviser being subpoenaed to testify in legal proceedings.”
Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said more clarity was needed about how to balance a desire for confidentiality with requirements under federal and state law.
Working With Police Agencies
Lawmakers and panelists agreed that strengthening cooperation between campuses and law enforcement on sexual-violence cases was a commendable goal and that a memorandum of understanding between the entities would be a positive step.
But Dolores Stafford, head of the National Association of Clery Compliance Officers and Professionals, noted that such an agreement doesn’t inherently make it more likely that a victim will report an assault.
Ms. Stafford also said she’d like to see a provision that “forces the hand of the local and state police agencies to actually engage with the campus police agencies.” While she was chief of police at George Washington University, she said, police chiefs in Washington, D.C., were often unwilling to enter into formal agreements.
Still, Ms. Napolitano emphasized that federal legislation should be flexible and shouldn’t interfere with “data-driven best practices” that are already in place on some campuses.
She noted that the University of California has already created a template agreement to help its campuses and law-enforcement agencies outline their roles in sexual-violence cases.
Rights of Accused Students
One goal of the revised legislation is to better protect the due-process rights of accused students. But Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, suggested on Wednesday that handing cases over to the police is “the only way you ensure that you get fair treatment for both parties.” He asked Ms. Napolitano to weigh in.
“We’re looking into that right now,” she responded. One question the California system is discussing, she said, is “what kind of support do we provide to a respondent in addition to a complainant?”
As the Senate panel debated the issue, a bill beefing up protections for accused students was being introduced in the House of Representatives on Wednesday. The proposal, which has the support of two national fraternity and sorority groups, would give local law-enforcement agencies 30 days of exclusive jurisdiction to investigate sexual-violence complaints before a campus disciplinary process kicked in.
The bill, dubbed the Safe Campus Act, is sponsored by three Republican lawmakers: Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona and Reps. Pete Sessions and Kay Granger of Texas.
Colleges could select the burden of proof they feel is appropriate and not be limited to the “preponderance of evidence” standard currently set by the U.S. Department of Education. That standard is lower than the one used in judicial cases.
Such steps would help restore confidence in a disciplinary system “that is unfair and opaque even as the stakes in these cases carry life-altering consequences for all parties,” Pete Smithhisler, president of the North-American Interfraternity Conference, and Jean Mrasek, chair of the National Panhellenic Conference, wrote in a letter to the leaders of the Senate education committee.
During the 30 days that police agencies are exclusively investigating the complaints, campuses could still take steps to protect the accusers, such as by temporarily suspending a student who poses a risk to others on a campus. A campus investigation and disciplinary hearing, however, could be held only if the accuser was willing to report a criminal activity to the police.
The push to involve local law-enforcement agencies early on is likely to be opposed by some advocates for victims, who argue that women will be less likely to come forward, fearing their complaints won’t be taken seriously.
Katherine Mangan contributed to this article.
