October 25, 2017 • 26 mins
Should student victims be asked to "mediate" with their rapists? That's what the latest guidelines passed down from the Department of Education, led by Betsy DeVos, suggest. E&B break the latest developments down.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Bridget and this is stuff Mom never
told you. Now today we have kind of an intense
topic for you. I just want to give a quick
suggar arning because it is about sexual assault. Today, we're
(00:27):
gonna be diving into the newest updates around the fight
to curb sexual assault on America's college campuses, what's being
done about it now, and how folks are getting involved
on this issue. So a quick level set of the
lay of the land when it comes to campus sexual
assault and what's being done about it. According to the
National Sexual Violence Resource Center or the n s v
r C, one in five women will be sexually assaulted
(00:50):
in college, as well as one in sixteen men. If
you paid attention to the initiatives that the Obama administration
had with Joe Biden, that's the number that might sound
familiar to you, and it's a number that we're gonna
be dealing with throughout the show. And what those numbers
really break down to mean is that twenty three percent
of college women and five percent of college men experience
rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation,
(01:15):
and of transgender or gender nonconforming students report rape or
sexual assault as well. That's a big number. It's a
big number. I would almost say it's an epidemic proportions.
And no one wants to send their kid away to
college and think that they're going to get assaulted or hurt.
But it seems like these numbers are to be believed.
That's the reality that a lot of parents are facing
every day. And all the reporting agencies and advocacy organizations
(01:38):
who track this data also reiterate, which is an important
sort of asterix here, that really assaults and rape are
under reported for a lot of different reasons, but those
numbers are really most likely conservative estimates for sure. For
sure because as we all know, sexual assault and rapes
and sex crimes are historically some of the most underreported
(01:59):
crimes out there, in part because of the culture around
victim blaming, which we're going to talk about further, and
the lack of belief that any kind of justice is
possible um and this is especially true on college campuses,
where a lot of the debate on this issue has
been not in the presence or lack there of of
assault and rape, but on how college campuses are dealing
(02:20):
with them. Some insist on managing it themselves, even despite
the fact that this is an illegal crime that is
being committed, and there's been a lot of reticence to
actually treating this epidemic like the criminal outbreak that it is.
So one statistic that came out in from the American
Association of University Women says that eight nine percent of
(02:40):
college campuses reported zero rapes. That actually might seem like
a really cheery number, like, oh, almost campuses reported no
rapes exactly, but here's why that's wrong. The key word
is reported. They've actually gone back and said that if
a campus is reporting that few sexual thoughts and rapes,
that actually that if this needs to rethink their reporting
(03:02):
structure and whether or not students are actually coming forward
because that figure just does not jibe with what's actually
going on when you look at the data, yeah, when
you look at surveys done of students. So one thing
to note is that if you're a college or university
that participates in a federal financial aid program, you actually
are required to do some reporting and transparency around who
(03:23):
is coming forward with rapes past. In nine, the Cleary
Act requires schools that get federal funding to disclose campus
crime stats and security information including training and prevention efforts,
which is good. So why the hell are not almost
of college campuses in reporting no rapes? Right? You know
what I mean? Like, how does that even? How is
that meeting the standards? Well, it really comes down to transparency, yeah,
(03:46):
and disclosure, which really gets me infuriated because you know
what this has to do with bridget This is a
marketing problem. This is all about the college industrial complex
that exists here in the United States where nobody wants
to be known as the rape campus. So everyone's trying
to keep hush hush on even toxic cultures or not
(04:07):
dealing with things like rape and sexual assault because god
forbid that should end up on a brochure somewhere and
have concerned parents asking about, you know, how safe should
I anticipate my daughter or son will be in terms
of the kind of rape statistics or what kind of
policies do you have in place to bring those crimes
to light? Well, that's exactly it. According to the American
(04:30):
Association of University Women, Basically, how schools are getting around
this requirement that they've reported around this is by mixing
in sexual assault numbers with other crimes, so they might
be reporting the numbers of crimes in general or crimes
like harassment or stalking, and they aren't required to actually
break out those numbers of sexual assaults and how they're
being dealt with, And that is part of the reason
(04:50):
why in two thousand eleven, the Obama administration wanted to
address this epidemic of campus assault and rape and the
total lack of a clear and measured justice system that
was being put in place at a lot of these
college campuses through a new outlining of guidelines for how
colleges and universities should deal with campus sexual assaults in
(05:12):
order to be aligned with Title nine of our Constitution.
And in laying out these new guidelines, and the Department
of Education under the Obama administration wrote a letter that's
a little bit wonky, but here's what it really breaks down.
In order for the school's grievance procedures or justice system
to be consistent with Title nine standards, the school must
(05:34):
use a preponderance of the evidence standard. In other words,
it's more likely than not that sexual harassment or violence
occurred the quote clear and convincing standard, i e. It's
highly probable or reasonably certain that the sexual harassment or
violence occurred, which is currently used by some schools, is
a higher standard of proof. Grievance procedures that use this
(05:58):
higher standard or inconsist, stint with the standard of proof
established for violations of the civil rights laws and thus
are not equitable under title line. In other words, the
Department of Education is saying, we need to lower the
evidence required for sexual assault and rape cases to actually
come to a conclusion in order for punitive measures to
(06:21):
be put in place and for justice to be served.
We shouldn't have to require clear and convincing, which is
a much higher legal standard to prove someone guilty of
rape or sexual assault. Instead, the school should use a
preponderance of evidence, which is a much more common um
or reasonable statute for proving that someone raped you, which
(06:44):
is not a not a very easy thing to prove exactly.
So that was a big wonky mouthful, but essentially what
they're saying is that it shouldn't require the same level
of evidence that it might require in a court room
in order to get some action. If you are sexual
assaulted on a college campus, and I honestly think if
you think about how sexual assaults out then do occur
on college campuses, it can often be very difficult to
(07:05):
prove I mean that he said, she said the time right,
And so it just seems to me to require an
intense level of evidence when we all understand that these
interactions often are murky, often don't have that kind of
high level evidence. You should still be able to get
justice even in those situations. And you're saying justice on
an academic level, not in a courtroom, exactly about throwing
(07:26):
someone in jail. We're talking about kicking someone off of
the college campus, which, if you think about it, the
underlying sort of presupposition that is inherent to this decision
is whether or not we should believe victims who come
forward and claim that they were raped or sexually assaulted.
There's two lines of thought, in my opinion. There are
(07:47):
the people who believe like I do, quite frankly, for
you to come forward and report a rape or sexual assault,
which is not a pleasant thing to do with your
life or time. I'm inclined to hear you out and
believe you. And I'm not saying that it's open and
shut case every time someone says that they were raped,
But if you inherently are skeptical of rape, claimants of
(08:13):
people who say that they were raped or sexually assaulted. Basically,
what you're saying is that we should be defaulting on
the side of believing survivors. And I think knowing that
the number of people who falsely claimed to be raped
or sexually assaulted is so low. In my mind, this
is my personal opinion. I don't feel like we lose
anything by having our default be belief survivors. Yeah, it
(08:37):
is tricky though, because right it's we're talking about innocent
until proven guilty. That's not part of law. But that's
the thing I'm not. I'm not a court of law.
I'm I'm a person, right, and so I believe that
everybody gets do process. I believe everybody gets their daymn court.
But I as a person, I am able to look
at a situation and say I believe you. I believe
what you're saying. I'm not necessarily held to do process
standards that make sense. Yeah, I think it's sort of
(08:59):
the Department of Education Shin under the Obama administration was saying,
this isn't a courtroom setting either. So when we have
epidemic proportions of women, especially who are being raped and
sexually assaulted on college campuses, who are under reporting we
know under reporting is a thing, and whose rapists are
walking amongst them in college. That is preventing those women
(09:21):
from getting their rights to an equal education. That's really
what is happening here. Exactly because of all of those circumstances,
we should lower the bar for proof and it shouldn't
be a legal courtroom standard for proving your sexual assault
or rape. That's exactly it. And all of that goes
back to Title nine. So Title nine is a US
Education amendment from nineteen seventy two which basically says that
(09:44):
the sexual harassment of students, including sexual violence, interferes with
students right to receive an education free from discrimination, and
in the case of sexual violence, is a crime. So basically,
this title is a title that allows for students and
universities to say, Hey, if I'm being sexually harassed on campus,
as a public university, you are required to make sure
(10:04):
that I get the same level of education as every
other student here. And if I'm being sexually harassed, if
there is a sexual assault epidemic on campus that isn't
being dealt with, then I am not able to get
that education that you promise that you would barely give
to me right or I'm not being offered a safe
environment for me to continue my studies. It's basically saying,
(10:25):
if you're siding with the rapist by saying you guys
should just work it out or just peacefully coexist, you
don't understand that you're not creating a safe environment for
me to learn exactly. Of course, we have a Trump
alert coming up, Trump Alert, Trump be alert at Trump Alert,
because that is the nature of new guidelines when they're
handed down from the Department of Education in two thousand
(10:48):
and eleven, is going to look a lot different than
new guidelines handed down by the Department of Education in
two thousand and seventeen. Exactly. Emily, there's a lot of
new updates in terms of what the Trump administration is
doing and their new head of the Department of Education,
Betsy Devas, is doing on the front curb sexual assault
on college campuses. We're gonna dig into what that looks
like after this quick break and we're back. So earlier
(11:18):
this month, Betsy Divas, who is the Trump administration's head
of the Department of Education, announced they were going to
be rolling back the Obama administration's guidelines around how colleges
should be handling sexual assaults on campus. More or less,
they decided that they were gonna be totally reversing these
guidelines and coming up with interim guidelines in the meantime
before they came up with the new permanent guidelines. Right, So,
(11:40):
whereas the Obama administration's Department of Education lowered the burden
of proof on the part of claimants who were reporting
rape or sexual assault, they raised the bar once again.
They said, we are just gonna undo what that former
administration has done. Basically, they're requiring a lot more evidence
in order for a rape or sexusault claimed to be
(12:01):
heard because they believe that a verdict can lead to
discipline and expulsion, and that is the problem that they
want to focus on. Instead of focusing on the epidemic
of sexual assault on college campuses, they're coming to the
defense of predominantly men on college campuses, who they believe
the bigger problem is in their in their eyes, behind
(12:23):
this move is the unfair disciplinary retaliation against alleged rapists.
So that's who they're standing up for in this move.
They're saying, you know what's a bigger problem than campus
sexual assault, men who are falsely claimed of rape, and
that is literally who they're standing up for with this move. Well,
I would say that it sounds like you're exaggerating, but
(12:43):
when you go and look at the people and the
group that Divas actually met with, that's actually who it is.
In addition to meeting with victims, advocates, and organizations that
are trying to curb sexual assault on campus, she also
met with groups who are advocating for quote the do
process rights of acute students. These are organizations like Families
Advocating for Campus Equality or FACE, a nonprofit founded by
(13:04):
mothers of sons who had been falsely accused of sexual
misconduct in college. I mean, here's the thing. I don't
want people to be falsely accused of rape. I don't
want people to be falsely kicked out of college because
of sexual assault. But I'm inclined to believe that's a
much smaller problem than actual sexual assault and actual rape
on campus. So, you know, good for the moms, by
(13:25):
the way, not the dad's question mark what the hell
is moms are responsible for their sons uh sexual misconduct
or lack thereof, because they're all definitely innocent who have
been falsely claimed as rapist, and I'm just like, I
get it. I agree that we are having a conversation
about what sexual consent looks like, especially on college campuses,
(13:46):
especially when there's alcohol involved, which does make things a
little murkier. However, I just think that we're doing actual
rape victims and sexual assault victims a serious disservice when
we put motions forward like this that focuses instead on
a much much, much smaller and more rare problem, which
is the false they accused. Well, and I think you're
exactly right. And what troubles me so much about this
(14:07):
conversation that's coming out of the Department of Education is
that it seems as if the people who are in
charge of setting the tone for how sexual assaults are
investigated on college campuses stationwide believe some jan kie bs.
If you look at this quote from Candice Jackson, who
leads the Education Department's Office for the Civil Rights and
it's basically in charge of investigating these claims, she's quoted
(14:28):
as saying in The New York Times that sexual assault
accusations on college campuses of them fall into the category
of we were both drunk we broke up, and six
months later I found myself under a Title nine investigation
because she decided that our last sleeping together was not
quite right. Now, I should go on and say that
Jackson later apologize and called these remarks flippant. But it's
this is the if. This is the message that is
(14:50):
coming out of the organization that is in charge of
setting the tone for how we deal with sexual as
thought on college campuses. What is that? What kind of
message is that telling you? I mean, it's telling you
to She literally doesn't believe victims. She, like so many people,
have a false perception that there are tons of women
out there claiming rape just because they regret a relationship.
(15:11):
When if you look at what the experiences like of
any woman who does push charges against a rapist, that
is not an uphill climb that you would venture into
lightly or without real cause, and that most people would
avoid the reporting altogether because it's like experiencing the rape
all over again. Well, when you look at the numbers,
most people do. That's why we're talking about these crimes
(15:32):
being so vastly underreported, because we see how people who
are the victims of sexual thoughts are so often dragged
with the mud. They're so often disprespected, they're so often
you know, their past or dug up in this way.
Is if that makes a difference in terms of what
actually happened. They're revictimized through the trial. Kind of like
when we were talking about Ellen Powe's trial, how much
her life was in many ways ruined, even more so
(15:54):
than the sexual assault that she was facing at work,
because the trial itself was so taxing. You know who
became kind of a poster her child for this too
was Taylor Swift. Recently, we would be remiss not to
mention the fact that she press charges. She reported she
didn't let this guy off the hook for grabbing her
bare ass at a fan meet and greet because she
wanted to stand up for all the other women, millions
(16:16):
of other women who don't have necessarily the time, the energy,
the money, the resources to put themselves through that again,
and watching her go through that, watching the mixed headlines
that came out of her trial, even though she was
so courageous and brave and fears in not allowing the
defendant's attorney to make her feel less van or question
(16:37):
her sanity or memory or character. It was inspiring, inspiring,
and to add on to that, look at someone like
Kesha who called out her sexual abuser. I mean, if
you ever want to see why people don't report sexual
assaults or sex crimes or sexual harassment, look at Kesha
and look at where she is with her career. She's
been fighting to get her career back right because she
(16:58):
spoke up about what happened to her side note Rainbow Amazing.
I am obsessed with her new album. I've never been
a listener before, but I am obsessed. She just did
a collaboration with Mackamore. I don't know if do we
like Magamore? I have no strong feelings. Do you like
his haircut? Now? One off the Nazis picked up on
his haircut he ditched it, which I thought it was good.
(17:19):
But yes, now I am a big Macamore fan too,
and I just love this collaboration anyway. Yeah, I'm a
big fan of Kesha. So in case your blood isn't
boiling enough already. The other group that Divos met with
before rolling back these guidelines is the National Coalition for Men.
I like men. I want men to have rights as well.
(17:39):
But if you look at what the National Coalition for
Men is it's actually, according to think Progress, a group
with a quote long history of what is now known
as men's rights activism. Some of that activism has included
things like publishing the photos and names of women who
have reported sexual assault and labeling them as false accusers
to watch out for. And when you think about this
(18:01):
idea of publishing accusers pictures online, I mean, would you
want to report if you knew that your picture might
wind up on a website? Would you feel like that
it was a safe climate to say, hey, this happened
to me. I think it was a crime. Would you
feel safe in doing that if you thought your picture
was going to wind up on this creepy website. The president,
Harry Crouch, has vocally blamed survivors for the abuse that
(18:24):
they faced. In a two four interview with The Pacific Standard,
Crouch defended Ray Rice, a former football player you may
have heard of who was indicted on third degree aggravated
assault for an incident involving his then fiancee, isn't either
one who dragged her out of the elevator. And yeah,
there was a bit out of him punching her and
(18:45):
dragging her lifeless body out of an elevator. Right, So
that's the kind of guy that this guy likes to
come to the defense of. He said, and I quote,
I'm not saying he's a good guy, but if she
hadn't aggravated him, she wouldn't have been hit. They would
say it's blaming the victim, but I don't buy it.
And these are the organizations that Bessie Divas was getting
(19:05):
counsel from while coming up with the interim guidelines or
how to deal with sexual assault on college campuses. That
doesn't enrage you. One of the things that makes me
so angry about this is that it really sets up
this false dichotomy, Like on the one side, it's victims
and victims advocates. On the other side, it's I don't
know how to put the victim suspects, like people who
(19:26):
inherently suspect victims. Yeah, it's it sets up this weird
dichotomy that I'm really really uncomfortable with. We're victims and
victims advocates are on one side, and people who are
skeptical of victims or on the other. And it's trying
to sort of make it seem like we can all
work together to come to some sort of agreement on
how we're gonna deal with this problem. It's not balanced
at all, but we're treating it as if it's balanced.
(19:48):
We're treating it as if the motivations of each group's
come from the same place and just a hammer home
how not normal Divorces interim guidance is on this measure.
Her departments take on this, It's no surprise eyes are
completely different than the Obama administrations take. But what might
surprise you is that the Bush administration also completely would
(20:09):
not have signed off on what Divas is putting forth.
Her interim guidance actually allows schools to resolve sexual violence
complaints through mediation. Let's just have you sit in a
room with your rapist and we can talk this out
with a student peer counselor Okay, that's literally what they
are putting for. I am enraged right now, and I'm
freaking out because the idea of putting women through that
(20:31):
is beyond retriggering. And the Bush administration had outlawed that exactly,
So what the hell is happening now? So? Yeah, the
Bush administration specifically said that even though mediation can be
helpful in some cases, they say that expressly should not
be used to resolve cases of sexual assault on campus,
and so I think it's really telling the Divas says, Wait, actually,
(20:53):
mediation is a great way to resolve campus sexual assaults.
And we're gonna talk a bit more about why that
completely falls apart after a quick break and we're back,
and we were just talking about some of the new
guidelines around campisexual assault and why they might not be
(21:14):
so useful after all. So one of the things that
Betsy Devas is putting forth as a way to resolve
sexual assaults on campus is mediation. Now, mediation can be
a great way of solving college disputes between students. Maybe
if you have a fight with your roommate, or you
guys don't get along, maybe you have a problem with
an instructor, mediation might actually be helpful. But why is
mediation not a good way to resolve CAMPI sexual assaults. Well,
(21:36):
there's an underlying assumption behind mediation, which is this presupposition
that both parties are somewhat at fault, so we can
talk through what you did wrong, what I did wrong,
how we can get better together, and when we frame
sexual assault or rape as something in which two parties
are responsible for, which a lot of people would happily say,
(21:57):
you know, as as this head of the men's rights
organization says, you know, maybe she shouldn't have aggravated him,
Maybe she had it coming, Maybe she had that punch coming.
That is the kind of narrative that we reinforce by
postulating that mediation is an appropriate response to rape and
sexual assault. And honestly, I can't even get through this
(22:19):
without becoming enraged because it plays into this narrative beyond
victim blaming, it plays into a narrative that you are
somehow responsible for solving the problem that has victimized you.
I just I can I lose my mind thinking about this.
Well exactly, it's just like what Grace Watkins writes over
(22:39):
at motto. She writes, there is no shared blade and
sexual assault. Survibers of sexual violence should not be asked
to compromise, self reflect or reconcile relationships with someone the
assaulted them. Even worse, mediation perpetuates the myth that sexual
assault is simply a misunderstanding between two people rather than
what it really is, a violent abuse of power. Mediation
(23:00):
betishizes compromise, which for survivors often means premature forgiveness and
serious harm. It relies on the societal expectation that quote
good girls forgive the same gender stereotypes that Title nine
was intended to eliminate, and that really I think that
really hammers at home for me. Mediation really does assume, oh,
(23:20):
we both, we both had a hand in this, let's
talk it out, let's work it out. And I don't
think survivors should be asked to do that, especially not
with the person that victimized them. And we're not alone
in that, because right after this set of guidelines was
handed down by Divas, the hashtag stop Betsy, referring to
Betsy Divas immediately began trending on Twitter as students began
(23:42):
protesting on campuses like GW University. Harvard recently made headlines
with a really compelling and powerful silent protest that involved
students who attended a speech she was giving on campus
standing up silently, unfurling signs that say things like protect
survivors rights and our Harvard can do better. So I
(24:03):
really got to give it to these students who are
leading the way and saying that they're not cool with
this new guidance coming out of the Trump administration. Furthermore,
I do think there might be a little bit of
good news on this issue because a lot of lawmakers
are really taking this up as one of their big
issues to deal with. Um Missouri Senator Claire mccaskell wrote
Trump a letter in which she criticizes administrations handling of
(24:24):
sexual assault on campus so far and asked that they
could talk to work together on a new policy. Furthermore,
folks like Senator Cureson gilibrand have really made this an
issue that they have been campaigning on and talking on
and making a lot of noise about for their constituents.
So it's not all bad, and I really am a
little bit optimistic that more lawmakers will sort of take
the charge here and really come up with a solution
(24:44):
that works for more folks, right, and especially one that
works for victims, because college campuses still to this day
are operating like the wild wild West when it comes
to sexual assault and rape on campus, and for anyone
who is a student on college campuses, or a pair
of someone who is a student on college campuses, or
simply doesn't want to perpetuate this idea that boys will
(25:07):
be boys and college rape doesn't indicate something tremendously problematic
about what this young person might do to continue being
even more violent in their life after college. We are
missing opportunities to take real, responsible, punitive action on college
campuses right now that could actually prevent further harm from
(25:28):
never taking place, because when we brush off things like
domestic violence and assault and rape and say, oh, they're
not that big a deal, and then we like create
these loopholes like what exists on college campuses right now,
we're creating more public danger, pure and simple, because that
is that is the kind of behavior that is not
going to stop if someone gets away with it on
(25:50):
college campuses and implicitly gets a you know, you can
get away with this and nothing will happen to you message.
And I think it really comes back to what you
said earlier about college does not want to look wanting
to look like this quote unquote sexual assault school. So
we all were a little bit more transparent and dealt
with this issue in a more serious way with the
gravity that it deserves. That's the only way that will
(26:10):
ever get anywhere on this issue. So sminthy listeners, we
want to hear from you on this is your blood
boiling as much as mine is right now? How are
you taking action to make your voice heard to make
sure the Department of Education and Betsy Davos, here's you,
loud and clear. Are you using that hashtag stop Betsy not?
(26:31):
Maybe you should and we will join you in on
that conversation on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, on Instagram
at stuff mom Never told You, And as always, let's
continue this very nuanced conversation via our email at mom
Stuff at how stuff works dot com
Hey, this is Bridget and this is stuff Mom never
told you. Now today we have kind of an intense
topic for you. I just want to give a quick
suggar arning because it is about sexual assault. Today, we're
(00:27):
gonna be diving into the newest updates around the fight
to curb sexual assault on America's college campuses, what's being
done about it now, and how folks are getting involved
on this issue. So a quick level set of the
lay of the land when it comes to campus sexual
assault and what's being done about it. According to the
National Sexual Violence Resource Center or the n s v
r C, one in five women will be sexually assaulted
(00:50):
in college, as well as one in sixteen men. If
you paid attention to the initiatives that the Obama administration
had with Joe Biden, that's the number that might sound
familiar to you, and it's a number that we're gonna
be dealing with throughout the show. And what those numbers
really break down to mean is that twenty three percent
of college women and five percent of college men experience
rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation,
(01:15):
and of transgender or gender nonconforming students report rape or
sexual assault as well. That's a big number. It's a
big number. I would almost say it's an epidemic proportions.
And no one wants to send their kid away to
college and think that they're going to get assaulted or hurt.
But it seems like these numbers are to be believed.
That's the reality that a lot of parents are facing
every day. And all the reporting agencies and advocacy organizations
(01:38):
who track this data also reiterate, which is an important
sort of asterix here, that really assaults and rape are
under reported for a lot of different reasons, but those
numbers are really most likely conservative estimates for sure. For
sure because as we all know, sexual assault and rapes
and sex crimes are historically some of the most underreported
(01:59):
crimes out there, in part because of the culture around
victim blaming, which we're going to talk about further, and
the lack of belief that any kind of justice is
possible um and this is especially true on college campuses,
where a lot of the debate on this issue has
been not in the presence or lack there of of
assault and rape, but on how college campuses are dealing
(02:20):
with them. Some insist on managing it themselves, even despite
the fact that this is an illegal crime that is
being committed, and there's been a lot of reticence to
actually treating this epidemic like the criminal outbreak that it is.
So one statistic that came out in from the American
Association of University Women says that eight nine percent of
(02:40):
college campuses reported zero rapes. That actually might seem like
a really cheery number, like, oh, almost campuses reported no
rapes exactly, but here's why that's wrong. The key word
is reported. They've actually gone back and said that if
a campus is reporting that few sexual thoughts and rapes,
that actually that if this needs to rethink their reporting
(03:02):
structure and whether or not students are actually coming forward
because that figure just does not jibe with what's actually
going on when you look at the data, yeah, when
you look at surveys done of students. So one thing
to note is that if you're a college or university
that participates in a federal financial aid program, you actually
are required to do some reporting and transparency around who
(03:23):
is coming forward with rapes past. In nine, the Cleary
Act requires schools that get federal funding to disclose campus
crime stats and security information including training and prevention efforts,
which is good. So why the hell are not almost
of college campuses in reporting no rapes? Right? You know
what I mean? Like, how does that even? How is
that meeting the standards? Well, it really comes down to transparency, yeah,
(03:46):
and disclosure, which really gets me infuriated because you know
what this has to do with bridget This is a
marketing problem. This is all about the college industrial complex
that exists here in the United States where nobody wants
to be known as the rape campus. So everyone's trying
to keep hush hush on even toxic cultures or not
(04:07):
dealing with things like rape and sexual assault because god
forbid that should end up on a brochure somewhere and
have concerned parents asking about, you know, how safe should
I anticipate my daughter or son will be in terms
of the kind of rape statistics or what kind of
policies do you have in place to bring those crimes
to light? Well, that's exactly it. According to the American
(04:30):
Association of University Women, Basically, how schools are getting around
this requirement that they've reported around this is by mixing
in sexual assault numbers with other crimes, so they might
be reporting the numbers of crimes in general or crimes
like harassment or stalking, and they aren't required to actually
break out those numbers of sexual assaults and how they're
being dealt with, And that is part of the reason
(04:50):
why in two thousand eleven, the Obama administration wanted to
address this epidemic of campus assault and rape and the
total lack of a clear and measured justice system that
was being put in place at a lot of these
college campuses through a new outlining of guidelines for how
colleges and universities should deal with campus sexual assaults in
(05:12):
order to be aligned with Title nine of our Constitution.
And in laying out these new guidelines, and the Department
of Education under the Obama administration wrote a letter that's
a little bit wonky, but here's what it really breaks down.
In order for the school's grievance procedures or justice system
to be consistent with Title nine standards, the school must
(05:34):
use a preponderance of the evidence standard. In other words,
it's more likely than not that sexual harassment or violence
occurred the quote clear and convincing standard, i e. It's
highly probable or reasonably certain that the sexual harassment or
violence occurred, which is currently used by some schools, is
a higher standard of proof. Grievance procedures that use this
(05:58):
higher standard or inconsist, stint with the standard of proof
established for violations of the civil rights laws and thus
are not equitable under title line. In other words, the
Department of Education is saying, we need to lower the
evidence required for sexual assault and rape cases to actually
come to a conclusion in order for punitive measures to
(06:21):
be put in place and for justice to be served.
We shouldn't have to require clear and convincing, which is
a much higher legal standard to prove someone guilty of
rape or sexual assault. Instead, the school should use a
preponderance of evidence, which is a much more common um
or reasonable statute for proving that someone raped you, which
(06:44):
is not a not a very easy thing to prove exactly.
So that was a big wonky mouthful, but essentially what
they're saying is that it shouldn't require the same level
of evidence that it might require in a court room
in order to get some action. If you are sexual
assaulted on a college campus, and I honestly think if
you think about how sexual assaults out then do occur
on college campuses, it can often be very difficult to
(07:05):
prove I mean that he said, she said the time right,
And so it just seems to me to require an
intense level of evidence when we all understand that these
interactions often are murky, often don't have that kind of
high level evidence. You should still be able to get
justice even in those situations. And you're saying justice on
an academic level, not in a courtroom, exactly about throwing
(07:26):
someone in jail. We're talking about kicking someone off of
the college campus, which, if you think about it, the
underlying sort of presupposition that is inherent to this decision
is whether or not we should believe victims who come
forward and claim that they were raped or sexually assaulted.
There's two lines of thought, in my opinion. There are
(07:47):
the people who believe like I do, quite frankly, for
you to come forward and report a rape or sexual assault,
which is not a pleasant thing to do with your
life or time. I'm inclined to hear you out and
believe you. And I'm not saying that it's open and
shut case every time someone says that they were raped,
But if you inherently are skeptical of rape, claimants of
(08:13):
people who say that they were raped or sexually assaulted. Basically,
what you're saying is that we should be defaulting on
the side of believing survivors. And I think knowing that
the number of people who falsely claimed to be raped
or sexually assaulted is so low. In my mind, this
is my personal opinion. I don't feel like we lose
anything by having our default be belief survivors. Yeah, it
(08:37):
is tricky though, because right it's we're talking about innocent
until proven guilty. That's not part of law. But that's
the thing I'm not. I'm not a court of law.
I'm I'm a person, right, and so I believe that
everybody gets do process. I believe everybody gets their daymn court.
But I as a person, I am able to look
at a situation and say I believe you. I believe
what you're saying. I'm not necessarily held to do process
standards that make sense. Yeah, I think it's sort of
(08:59):
the Department of Education Shin under the Obama administration was saying,
this isn't a courtroom setting either. So when we have
epidemic proportions of women, especially who are being raped and
sexually assaulted on college campuses, who are under reporting we
know under reporting is a thing, and whose rapists are
walking amongst them in college. That is preventing those women
(09:21):
from getting their rights to an equal education. That's really
what is happening here. Exactly because of all of those circumstances,
we should lower the bar for proof and it shouldn't
be a legal courtroom standard for proving your sexual assault
or rape. That's exactly it. And all of that goes
back to Title nine. So Title nine is a US
Education amendment from nineteen seventy two which basically says that
(09:44):
the sexual harassment of students, including sexual violence, interferes with
students right to receive an education free from discrimination, and
in the case of sexual violence, is a crime. So basically,
this title is a title that allows for students and
universities to say, Hey, if I'm being sexually harassed on campus,
as a public university, you are required to make sure
(10:04):
that I get the same level of education as every
other student here. And if I'm being sexually harassed, if
there is a sexual assault epidemic on campus that isn't
being dealt with, then I am not able to get
that education that you promise that you would barely give
to me right or I'm not being offered a safe
environment for me to continue my studies. It's basically saying,
(10:25):
if you're siding with the rapist by saying you guys
should just work it out or just peacefully coexist, you
don't understand that you're not creating a safe environment for
me to learn exactly. Of course, we have a Trump
alert coming up, Trump Alert, Trump be alert at Trump Alert,
because that is the nature of new guidelines when they're
handed down from the Department of Education in two thousand
(10:48):
and eleven, is going to look a lot different than
new guidelines handed down by the Department of Education in
two thousand and seventeen. Exactly. Emily, there's a lot of
new updates in terms of what the Trump administration is
doing and their new head of the Department of Education,
Betsy Devas, is doing on the front curb sexual assault
on college campuses. We're gonna dig into what that looks
like after this quick break and we're back. So earlier
(11:18):
this month, Betsy Divas, who is the Trump administration's head
of the Department of Education, announced they were going to
be rolling back the Obama administration's guidelines around how colleges
should be handling sexual assaults on campus. More or less,
they decided that they were gonna be totally reversing these
guidelines and coming up with interim guidelines in the meantime
before they came up with the new permanent guidelines. Right, So,
(11:40):
whereas the Obama administration's Department of Education lowered the burden
of proof on the part of claimants who were reporting
rape or sexual assault, they raised the bar once again.
They said, we are just gonna undo what that former
administration has done. Basically, they're requiring a lot more evidence
in order for a rape or sexusault claimed to be
(12:01):
heard because they believe that a verdict can lead to
discipline and expulsion, and that is the problem that they
want to focus on. Instead of focusing on the epidemic
of sexual assault on college campuses, they're coming to the
defense of predominantly men on college campuses, who they believe
the bigger problem is in their in their eyes, behind
(12:23):
this move is the unfair disciplinary retaliation against alleged rapists.
So that's who they're standing up for in this move.
They're saying, you know what's a bigger problem than campus
sexual assault, men who are falsely claimed of rape, and
that is literally who they're standing up for with this move. Well,
I would say that it sounds like you're exaggerating, but
(12:43):
when you go and look at the people and the
group that Divas actually met with, that's actually who it is.
In addition to meeting with victims, advocates, and organizations that
are trying to curb sexual assault on campus, she also
met with groups who are advocating for quote the do
process rights of acute students. These are organizations like Families
Advocating for Campus Equality or FACE, a nonprofit founded by
(13:04):
mothers of sons who had been falsely accused of sexual
misconduct in college. I mean, here's the thing. I don't
want people to be falsely accused of rape. I don't
want people to be falsely kicked out of college because
of sexual assault. But I'm inclined to believe that's a
much smaller problem than actual sexual assault and actual rape
on campus. So, you know, good for the moms, by
(13:25):
the way, not the dad's question mark what the hell
is moms are responsible for their sons uh sexual misconduct
or lack thereof, because they're all definitely innocent who have
been falsely claimed as rapist, and I'm just like, I
get it. I agree that we are having a conversation
about what sexual consent looks like, especially on college campuses,
(13:46):
especially when there's alcohol involved, which does make things a
little murkier. However, I just think that we're doing actual
rape victims and sexual assault victims a serious disservice when
we put motions forward like this that focuses instead on
a much much, much smaller and more rare problem, which
is the false they accused. Well, and I think you're
exactly right. And what troubles me so much about this
(14:07):
conversation that's coming out of the Department of Education is
that it seems as if the people who are in
charge of setting the tone for how sexual assaults are
investigated on college campuses stationwide believe some jan kie bs.
If you look at this quote from Candice Jackson, who
leads the Education Department's Office for the Civil Rights and
it's basically in charge of investigating these claims, she's quoted
(14:28):
as saying in The New York Times that sexual assault
accusations on college campuses of them fall into the category
of we were both drunk we broke up, and six
months later I found myself under a Title nine investigation
because she decided that our last sleeping together was not
quite right. Now, I should go on and say that
Jackson later apologize and called these remarks flippant. But it's
this is the if. This is the message that is
(14:50):
coming out of the organization that is in charge of
setting the tone for how we deal with sexual as
thought on college campuses. What is that? What kind of
message is that telling you? I mean, it's telling you
to She literally doesn't believe victims. She, like so many people,
have a false perception that there are tons of women
out there claiming rape just because they regret a relationship.
(15:11):
When if you look at what the experiences like of
any woman who does push charges against a rapist, that
is not an uphill climb that you would venture into
lightly or without real cause, and that most people would
avoid the reporting altogether because it's like experiencing the rape
all over again. Well, when you look at the numbers,
most people do. That's why we're talking about these crimes
(15:32):
being so vastly underreported, because we see how people who
are the victims of sexual thoughts are so often dragged
with the mud. They're so often disprespected, they're so often
you know, their past or dug up in this way.
Is if that makes a difference in terms of what
actually happened. They're revictimized through the trial. Kind of like
when we were talking about Ellen Powe's trial, how much
her life was in many ways ruined, even more so
(15:54):
than the sexual assault that she was facing at work,
because the trial itself was so taxing. You know who
became kind of a poster her child for this too
was Taylor Swift. Recently, we would be remiss not to
mention the fact that she press charges. She reported she
didn't let this guy off the hook for grabbing her
bare ass at a fan meet and greet because she
wanted to stand up for all the other women, millions
(16:16):
of other women who don't have necessarily the time, the energy,
the money, the resources to put themselves through that again,
and watching her go through that, watching the mixed headlines
that came out of her trial, even though she was
so courageous and brave and fears in not allowing the
defendant's attorney to make her feel less van or question
(16:37):
her sanity or memory or character. It was inspiring, inspiring,
and to add on to that, look at someone like
Kesha who called out her sexual abuser. I mean, if
you ever want to see why people don't report sexual
assaults or sex crimes or sexual harassment, look at Kesha
and look at where she is with her career. She's
been fighting to get her career back right because she
(16:58):
spoke up about what happened to her side note Rainbow Amazing.
I am obsessed with her new album. I've never been
a listener before, but I am obsessed. She just did
a collaboration with Mackamore. I don't know if do we
like Magamore? I have no strong feelings. Do you like
his haircut? Now? One off the Nazis picked up on
his haircut he ditched it, which I thought it was good.
(17:19):
But yes, now I am a big Macamore fan too,
and I just love this collaboration anyway. Yeah, I'm a
big fan of Kesha. So in case your blood isn't
boiling enough already. The other group that Divos met with
before rolling back these guidelines is the National Coalition for Men.
I like men. I want men to have rights as well.
(17:39):
But if you look at what the National Coalition for
Men is it's actually, according to think Progress, a group
with a quote long history of what is now known
as men's rights activism. Some of that activism has included
things like publishing the photos and names of women who
have reported sexual assault and labeling them as false accusers
to watch out for. And when you think about this
(18:01):
idea of publishing accusers pictures online, I mean, would you
want to report if you knew that your picture might
wind up on a website? Would you feel like that
it was a safe climate to say, hey, this happened
to me. I think it was a crime. Would you
feel safe in doing that if you thought your picture
was going to wind up on this creepy website. The president,
Harry Crouch, has vocally blamed survivors for the abuse that
(18:24):
they faced. In a two four interview with The Pacific Standard,
Crouch defended Ray Rice, a former football player you may
have heard of who was indicted on third degree aggravated
assault for an incident involving his then fiancee, isn't either
one who dragged her out of the elevator. And yeah,
there was a bit out of him punching her and
(18:45):
dragging her lifeless body out of an elevator. Right, So
that's the kind of guy that this guy likes to
come to the defense of. He said, and I quote,
I'm not saying he's a good guy, but if she
hadn't aggravated him, she wouldn't have been hit. They would
say it's blaming the victim, but I don't buy it.
And these are the organizations that Bessie Divas was getting
(19:05):
counsel from while coming up with the interim guidelines or
how to deal with sexual assault on college campuses. That
doesn't enrage you. One of the things that makes me
so angry about this is that it really sets up
this false dichotomy, Like on the one side, it's victims
and victims advocates. On the other side, it's I don't
know how to put the victim suspects, like people who
(19:26):
inherently suspect victims. Yeah, it's it sets up this weird
dichotomy that I'm really really uncomfortable with. We're victims and
victims advocates are on one side, and people who are
skeptical of victims or on the other. And it's trying
to sort of make it seem like we can all
work together to come to some sort of agreement on
how we're gonna deal with this problem. It's not balanced
at all, but we're treating it as if it's balanced.
(19:48):
We're treating it as if the motivations of each group's
come from the same place and just a hammer home
how not normal Divorces interim guidance is on this measure.
Her departments take on this, It's no surprise eyes are
completely different than the Obama administrations take. But what might
surprise you is that the Bush administration also completely would
(20:09):
not have signed off on what Divas is putting forth.
Her interim guidance actually allows schools to resolve sexual violence
complaints through mediation. Let's just have you sit in a
room with your rapist and we can talk this out
with a student peer counselor Okay, that's literally what they
are putting for. I am enraged right now, and I'm
freaking out because the idea of putting women through that
(20:31):
is beyond retriggering. And the Bush administration had outlawed that exactly,
So what the hell is happening now? So? Yeah, the
Bush administration specifically said that even though mediation can be
helpful in some cases, they say that expressly should not
be used to resolve cases of sexual assault on campus,
and so I think it's really telling the Divas says, Wait, actually,
(20:53):
mediation is a great way to resolve campus sexual assaults.
And we're gonna talk a bit more about why that
completely falls apart after a quick break and we're back,
and we were just talking about some of the new
guidelines around campisexual assault and why they might not be
(21:14):
so useful after all. So one of the things that
Betsy Devas is putting forth as a way to resolve
sexual assaults on campus is mediation. Now, mediation can be
a great way of solving college disputes between students. Maybe
if you have a fight with your roommate, or you
guys don't get along, maybe you have a problem with
an instructor, mediation might actually be helpful. But why is
mediation not a good way to resolve CAMPI sexual assaults. Well,
(21:36):
there's an underlying assumption behind mediation, which is this presupposition
that both parties are somewhat at fault, so we can
talk through what you did wrong, what I did wrong,
how we can get better together, and when we frame
sexual assault or rape as something in which two parties
are responsible for, which a lot of people would happily say,
(21:57):
you know, as as this head of the men's rights
organization says, you know, maybe she shouldn't have aggravated him,
Maybe she had it coming, Maybe she had that punch coming.
That is the kind of narrative that we reinforce by
postulating that mediation is an appropriate response to rape and
sexual assault. And honestly, I can't even get through this
(22:19):
without becoming enraged because it plays into this narrative beyond
victim blaming, it plays into a narrative that you are
somehow responsible for solving the problem that has victimized you.
I just I can I lose my mind thinking about this.
Well exactly, it's just like what Grace Watkins writes over
(22:39):
at motto. She writes, there is no shared blade and
sexual assault. Survibers of sexual violence should not be asked
to compromise, self reflect or reconcile relationships with someone the
assaulted them. Even worse, mediation perpetuates the myth that sexual
assault is simply a misunderstanding between two people rather than
what it really is, a violent abuse of power. Mediation
(23:00):
betishizes compromise, which for survivors often means premature forgiveness and
serious harm. It relies on the societal expectation that quote
good girls forgive the same gender stereotypes that Title nine
was intended to eliminate, and that really I think that
really hammers at home for me. Mediation really does assume, oh,
(23:20):
we both, we both had a hand in this, let's
talk it out, let's work it out. And I don't
think survivors should be asked to do that, especially not
with the person that victimized them. And we're not alone
in that, because right after this set of guidelines was
handed down by Divas, the hashtag stop Betsy, referring to
Betsy Divas immediately began trending on Twitter as students began
(23:42):
protesting on campuses like GW University. Harvard recently made headlines
with a really compelling and powerful silent protest that involved
students who attended a speech she was giving on campus
standing up silently, unfurling signs that say things like protect
survivors rights and our Harvard can do better. So I
(24:03):
really got to give it to these students who are
leading the way and saying that they're not cool with
this new guidance coming out of the Trump administration. Furthermore,
I do think there might be a little bit of
good news on this issue because a lot of lawmakers
are really taking this up as one of their big
issues to deal with. Um Missouri Senator Claire mccaskell wrote
Trump a letter in which she criticizes administrations handling of
(24:24):
sexual assault on campus so far and asked that they
could talk to work together on a new policy. Furthermore,
folks like Senator Cureson gilibrand have really made this an
issue that they have been campaigning on and talking on
and making a lot of noise about for their constituents.
So it's not all bad, and I really am a
little bit optimistic that more lawmakers will sort of take
the charge here and really come up with a solution
(24:44):
that works for more folks, right, and especially one that
works for victims, because college campuses still to this day
are operating like the wild wild West when it comes
to sexual assault and rape on campus, and for anyone
who is a student on college campuses, or a pair
of someone who is a student on college campuses, or
simply doesn't want to perpetuate this idea that boys will
(25:07):
be boys and college rape doesn't indicate something tremendously problematic
about what this young person might do to continue being
even more violent in their life after college. We are
missing opportunities to take real, responsible, punitive action on college
campuses right now that could actually prevent further harm from
(25:28):
never taking place, because when we brush off things like
domestic violence and assault and rape and say, oh, they're
not that big a deal, and then we like create
these loopholes like what exists on college campuses right now,
we're creating more public danger, pure and simple, because that
is that is the kind of behavior that is not
going to stop if someone gets away with it on
(25:50):
college campuses and implicitly gets a you know, you can
get away with this and nothing will happen to you message.
And I think it really comes back to what you
said earlier about college does not want to look wanting
to look like this quote unquote sexual assault school. So
we all were a little bit more transparent and dealt
with this issue in a more serious way with the
gravity that it deserves. That's the only way that will
(26:10):
ever get anywhere on this issue. So sminthy listeners, we
want to hear from you on this is your blood
boiling as much as mine is right now? How are
you taking action to make your voice heard to make
sure the Department of Education and Betsy Davos, here's you,
loud and clear. Are you using that hashtag stop Betsy not?
(26:31):
Maybe you should and we will join you in on
that conversation on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, on Instagram
at stuff mom Never told You, And as always, let's
continue this very nuanced conversation via our email at mom
Stuff at how stuff works dot com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
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Samantha McVey
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