A glimpse at Miami University today
Today, Miami has many different resources including but not limited to, offices, staff members, programs, trainings and support groups devoted to bringing awareness to sexual assault on campus. In order to understand how these resources became available, I believe that it is important to include two federal policies that changed the ways that all college campuses report crime and address gender based discrimination.
The Clery Act
The Clery Act came around in the 1980s, named after a student murdered in her dorm room. The law however was pressured to change by many groups and causes, including the Women’s Movement at the time that wanted to make places of higher education safer for women. By 1990 the federal government passed the Crime awareness and campus security act into federal law. This act requires universities to report all crime statistics in a public and accessible manner, so that students are aware of what is going on around campus. The premise of the law is that prospective students can look at campus crime rates and compare to other schools. In turn, incentivizing institutions to take measures of safety in order to remain competitive with other schools. So how does this impact reporting of sexual assault? An amendment in 2003 to the Clery Act included that campus police must notify students about the residence of registered sex offenders.
Title IX
Title IX was passed into law in 1972 in hopes of creating gender equality in Higher Education. The law has been amended numerous time and spans from access to sport, sexual harassment and learning environment. Any part of university life and culture is subject to be in compliance with title IX. Sexual violence was brought to attention under Title IX in 2011 in the “Dear Colleague Letter” from the US Department of Education. When it comes to sexual assault, universities are subject to investigation and must uphold the standards set by the federal government. Even though this is required, little knowledge is available on how it is enforced and how seriously the OCR reviews schools for compliance. Federal funding pressures incentivize the university to convict in every case in order to avoid compliance issues, in turn unfairly convicting innocent defendants. However, at the same time low levels of reporting and unclear communication of policies lead to perpetrators rarely being convicted or facing trial.
Policies in Action
Both the Clery Act and Title IX can be seen in action on Miami’s Campus. The Office of Equity and Equal Opportunity houses the University’s Title IX coordinator, Kenya Ash. Miami also has a Deputy Title IX Coordinator for Student Sexual Assault, Rebecca Getson. Both of these staff members are appointed as a result of Title IX created at the federal level. The Clery Act is evident in the University Crime Report available year round as well as email and text alerts of crimes that happen on campus, including sexual assaults that are reported. The Clery act also requires universities to have mandatory reporters and Miami has designated all staff, some students and faculty to report to police if a student reports a crime to them, regardless of the student’s decision to report. One of the student positions that this arguably affects most often are Resident Assistants.
There are many different initiatives on Miami’s campus the work towards raising awareness for sexual assault and rape. Some are created by the university and some by the student body. Broadly, these events, programs and initiatives are separated into three categories: Education, Prevention and Awareness.
Educational Programming
Before students attend classes for the first time they are required to complete Haven, an online educational tool covering sexual assault, interpersonal violence and bystander intervention. This is a task that students complete individually. Then, at orientation students receive a plethora of resources, attend a seminar about campus safety and debrief the information in a small group setting. At the start of the school year Miami hosted a production called, “It is My Place” addressing many social issues, like alcohol and sexual assault. These are all delivered to first year students before they even step foot in a college classroom.
Prevention Programming
From there, different student groups are educated at different levels. First Year students enrolled in a University 101 course are required to attend a bystander intervention called Step Up! facilitated by HAWKS Peer Health Educators focused on stepping up for peers in a dangerous situation. The Miami University Police Department hosts a Campus Safety Fair that offers resources and information on how students can protect themselves against crimes.
Awareness Programming
Programs that revolve around bringing awareness to gender based violence and interpersonal violence often reside within student organizations. F-WORD hosts Take Back the Night annually and The Women’s Center does the Clothesline Project each year. Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault (MARS) host “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” to raise awareness around domestic and sexual violence. Miami University adopted the It’s On Us campaign in 2015 as part of a nationwide campaign. Small events happen throughout the year in residence halls as well.
Mandated Reporting and Training
As of July 1, 2017 Miami designated all employees as mandated reporters when a student discloses sexual assault to them. Miami cites the need to “create and maintain One Miami that promotes responsibility, dignity, and respect for all members of our community” as the reason for the change. With this change being so recent there is not yet information if it is positive for the community and for survivors. For insight, I have chosen to interview Resident Assistants, students who serve as mandated reporters while in their position. My interviews also included questions regarding the training that RAs receive, going back to the survivor support focus of my project, I was interested in learning how much was focused on that.