Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

Re:  campus policies and IPV

Dear colleagues;

I'm heartened by recent conversations about campus policies and IPV and 
wanted to add these observations:

1. Many universities have special (relatively ineffective) policies re: 
sexual assault - and broader (relatively effective) policies for virtually 
all other issues, with the exception of special rules for targeted harassment 
based on race, etc.  This approach has bred a lot of hostility and has 
created problems that needn't be repeated here, but suffice it to say the 
common problem has been an institutional failure to treat sexual assault as a 
Title IX issue.  

2. For universities that DO handle sexual assault as a Title IX problem, and 
a form of sexual harassment, the addition of IPV to these policies and 
procedures should prove simple.  Sexual harassment - to be "based on sex" can 
be about the sexual nature of the act OR the gender/sex of the victim.  
Adding IPV as a gender/sex of the victim issue seems appropriate and may not 
even need a new category so much as better education about the fact that 
Title IX covers IPV when the harm is not a sexual offense but is targeted 
physical violence or threats or stalking "based on" the fact that the victim 
is female.

3. It is certainly possible that physical violence against a female might not 
be "based on" gender/sex - but the presumption should be that all harm 
reported as "targeted" against the victim because of her gender/sex will be 
treated as a Title IX matter.  As to how this determination is made, any 
training around how one decides whether harm against a student is "based on" 
race, ethnicity, etc - should apply to policies re sex/gender.

4.  It should be made clear that an IPV assault could be "based on the sexual 
nature of the harm" AND/OR "based on sex/gender".  Both claims could apply if 
an assault is physical and sexual in nature.

5. For IPV NOT sexual in nature and NOT motivated by the status of the 
victim, the harm should defined as covered by existing policies and 
procedures regarding generic assault - and again, changes to these policies 
may not need to be made.  Education about the meaning of these rules should 
suffice because the real problem is that students need to understand the role 
of Title IX in sexual AND nonsexual violence when the victim is female.

I was involved in a matter recently at a university handling a formal dispute 
between students that included allegations of rape, and it was helpful that 
the nature of the offense, and indeed, the elements of the offense, did not 
have ANY criminal law language.  It was a less charged environment to have 
the facts viewed through the proper light of Title IX and sexual harassment 
law - which not only was fair and correct but set a better tone overall - for 
everyone.

Bottom line - 
I recommend that all schools hoping to avoid a situation like the Yeardley 
Love matter at UVA should stop segregating sexual assault for "special 
treatment" not only because it has been a colossal failure that divides 
students and subjugates women - but also because IPV, like sexual assault, 
should be recognized openly as a form of gender discrimination because that's 
exactly what IPV is - whether it's physical assault, threats, stalking or 
sexual victimization, the idea that women disproportionately bear these harms 
is not fully addressed on any campus (as far as I can tell).

Failure to teach students about the civil rights nature of IPV also makes it 
harder to deter offending students from engaging in discriminatory violence 
against women.  

I'll go out on a limb and say I bet the guy who killed Yeardley Love has 
never EVER been told that hitting, raping or stalking his girlfriend on 
campus was a violation of Title IX and a civil rights offense against 
Yeardley "based on sex/gender".

It would nice to see some university step up - and teach male students about 
the nature of the harm - and the risk to THEM in terms of punishment if they 
choose to act in derogation of these rules.

As for the growing interest in adding "victims' rights" rules to policies and 
procedures, I hope schools will resist these suggestions - at least for now - 
until the idea takes form as an aspect of Title IX's mandate that victims be 
treated with "equity" vis a vis the accused student and all other targeted 
classes of people on campus.  Victims' rights laws in the real world are all 
but meaningless boondoggles that relegate the victim to "differentness" (and 
lesser status than the accused) - because they exist in a justice system 
where the accused DOES enjoy dominant rights.  This is not true in the 
university environment, where victims have equal IF NOT MORE rights than the 
accused student, precisely because the school is not the government, and the 
victim - but not the accused - has constitutional status given the civil 
rights at stake under Title IX.
So what's really needed is not "victims rights" so much as expansion of and 
better understanding of what "equity" means.  Creating "victims' rights" will 
distract from this principle and potentially co-opt advocates into thinking 
they're getting something good - when they're really getting a pig in a poke 
because nobody's talking about the federal requirement of "equity".

Wendy Murphy



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