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

["S. Daniel Carter" <>]

On 5/21/12 2:52 PM, "" <> wrote:

If this bill becomes law - it will be even harder for victims to get to OCR -- which is the only source of oversight, such as it is. 

One of the main reasons we developed the Campus SaVE Act as an amendment to the Clery Act is precisely so that there would be an additional source of oversight, with a much broader range of enforcement options. Under Clery the U.S. Department of Education’s office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) can not only investigate or suspend student aid funds, which are OCR’s options, they can also issues fines or limit student aid.

FSA has recently established a specialized Clery Team to exclusively handle these types of cases. We expect a formal announcement about this, and a new complaint process for victims and whistleblowers to be forthcoming. The first public aspect of this process is an e-mail address, , that may be used for filing complaints.

Frankly, what we really need is a change in federal law to eliminate the liability disparity that incentivizes schools to side with offenders.  I don't like suing schools, and most of my clients want to retain a good relationship with their alma mater, so I'm not saying we need MORE lawsuits.  I'm arguing for liability detente - everyone should have the same POTENTIAL to sue. Then there will be fewer actual suits because schools will, in fact, be more fair.

This is an interesting issue, but it has nothing to do with SaVE. As passed by the Senate it would be subject to Clery’s longstanding prohibition on any private right of action, or even use of evidence of compliance or non-compliance in any action except one brought, presumably by the government, to enforce the Act. SaVE therefore should not affect this balance one way or another including any private actions under Title IX.

And when the worst offending schools are aggressively supporting the bill - we should not only put the brakes on, we should drive the train right off the tracks.

While we crafted SaVE to move things forward, we had significant input from front-line practitioners and wanted it to be something institutions could support especially those who have embraced the promising practices it promotes. Exactly what institutions are you accusing of having impure motives in supporting it, and exactly what have they done?

Why else would Congress pass a law about the judicial proceedings that must be used to redress violence against women, but not make them equally applicable to all forms of targeted violence on campus?

I would note that Congress first did this 20 years ago in enacting the original Campus Sexual Assault Victims’ Bill of Rights. This is hardly anything new, and it has not caused any major problems in that time. If anything, for most of these 20 years there was much more done to address victims’ rights and education requirements under this law than Title IX. Congress acted then, and again now because of the particular severity of sexual violence, and quite frankly a practical lack of other good remedies – notwithstanding OCR’s recent stepped up actions which actually didn’t begin until after SaVE was first developed and introduced.

Finally, with respect to “final results” I was able to make contact with the legislative counsel who assisted Congressman Ramstad with putting that in 20 years ago. He had about at as little recollection about that as I did, but thought it probably came about as a result of conversations with House and Senate committee staff. This is common, and this type of conversation has had a large role to play in SaVE’s evolution as well. There is no special or other overriding meaning to it, we just kept it in so that terms understood from the existing law could carryover. The intent is that it means the same thing as resolution. We can work on either clarifying this, or it may even be possible to change the wording as a “technical amendment” during any conference proceedings. I assure you there is no intent to permit proceedings to carry on for years.

S. Daniel Carter

Director of the 32 National Campus Safety Index

VTV Family Outreach Foundation

P.O. Box 230024 * Centreville, Virginia  20120

Office: 202-684-6471 * Fax: 865-691-6979

www.vtvfamilyfoundation