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

["Hotvedt, Carmen" <>]

Thanks, Claire, for putting this viewpoint out here.  I really appreciate it.  This ongoing conversation is vital. 

 

I empathize with the very difficult role that conduct officers are in—if they cannot get to suspension or expulsion, what is a meaningful sanction for an offender in an educational environment?  I’ve very much appreciated our conduct officers consulting with this matter on campus at a policy level, but on a services level, I feel that it is inappropriate for campus prevention and victim advocacy offices to be involved in what we call tertiary prevention/offender accountability/educational sanctions for individual students.  It puts preventionists and victim advocates in a conflicting role on campus (it is unethical for my office to serve as a confidential victim advocate to one student and provide an educational sanction serving to their perpetrator).  Many of our prevention services are simply not designed nor evaluated to prevent re-offense as that is not their intention. 

I cannot stop a conduct officer from “sanctioning” a student to our first year online program (which is available online without a logon for the public) or attending a workshop that is otherwise open to the campus community, but do have concerns about the impact of the campus using the same tools to prevent first time perpetration as it uses to remediate the behavior or someone who is known to have/being investigated for having perpetrated. 

 

The ongoing practitioner research, publication, and advancement of restorative justice models has been exciting to watch develop, and there does show promise in that area—but requires extensive training, services, alignment of RJ values with all involved parties, and acceptance of responsibility from the offender.  Though there is promise to RJ, I’d really hope that campuses who hope to incorporate it can demonstrate their ability to do so in other areas of student misconduct before trying to pilot it in gender based violence work.  The watered down, not trained, not intensively supported version of this looks a bit too much like mediation.

 

All of this said, I’m curious to know if anyone is doing gender-specific early interventions with students who are sanctioned for alcohol issues?  Some data (Everfi, from Haven) shows some interesting analysis around the heightened likelihood of “taking advantage of someone sexually” (which is not an ideal measure of sexual assault perpetration) for first year men who shift towards increased use/abuse of alcohol in their first few weeks of school.  Similarly, women who shift upwards in their use of alcohol in the first few weeks of school indicate a heightened likelihood of “being taken advantage of sexually” (also not an ideal measurement of sexual assault victimization). These aren’t perfect data sets, but the trends are fascinating and may lend themselves to addressing gender norms, victim empathy, protective factors, and bystander behavior as part of an alcohol sanction in an attempt to provide an early intervention.  I’d love to hear from folks experimenting in that arena, and Rob, feel free to chime in with any work Everfi might have done around this!       

 

Take care, all

 

Carmen Juniper Neimeko Hotvedt

Manager, Violence Prevention and Victim Advocacy
University Health Services
UW-Madison

 

End Violence On Campus

EVOC Change.  EVOC Equality.  EVOC Respect.

 

 

 

From: Kaplan, Claire Naomi (cnk2r) [mailto:]
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2016 12:02 PM
To: ; Zachary Friedman <>
Subject: Re: Educational sanction for gender-based misconduct

 

Hi All,

 

I become very wary when I hear people discussing “educational sanctions.”  I don’t think that there is a comparison when discussing substance abuse, since largely those cases do not involve intentional harming of another (in particular, felonies of a violent nature).  By its very nature, sexual misconduct involves harming others in a way that has a permanent impact.  So can some cases involving substance abuse and violent behavior not of a sexual nature, but we all know that sexual assault in particular has far more serious emotional consequences than other violent crimes, even when the violence isn’t egregious by comparison.  So if I sound snippy about this, it’s because there is no way to reduce sexual assault or intimate partner violence to the level of a drunken brawl or even public drunkenness, whether or not alcohol or other drugs are present.  I have a friend and colleague (now retired) who was our go-to-therapist for treating perpetrators (he used evidence-based methods).  He came to the conclusion that almost none of the young men (and they were all men) who were referred to him were serious about change or interested going beyond the minimum required for readmission.

 

That being said, I do think that there is promise in restorative justice, which is not the same thing as educational sanctions.  I’ve attached an article by a former student that might be of interest.

 

Best,

Claire Kaplan

 

 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Claire Kaplan, Ph.D.

Program Director, Gender Violence & Social Change

Maxine Platzer Lynn Women's Center

University of Virginia

(434) 982-2774 Voice

(434) 982-2901 Fax

http://womenscenter.virginia.edu/gender-violence-and-social-change/

Follow me on Twitter at @clairskyk

 

Email is not a confidential form of communication. If you need assistance related to sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence or stalking, please call 434-982-2774, 8:30-5:00 M-F. If you need support outside of these hours please call the SARA Hotline (24/7 for sexual assault issues) at 434-977-7273 or the SHE Hotline (24/7 for abusive relationships/stalking) at 434-293-8509.

 

 

From: Zachary Friedman <>
Date: Monday, March 14, 2016 at 10:52 AM
To: Sexual Assault Program Coordinators' Listserv <>
Subject: Educational sanction for gender-based misconduct

 

Hi all,

 

I am a Title IX investigator at Columbia University and am new to the listserv. I am working on a particular project, and Maria Wydra kindly suggested that I post here in my search for input/collaboration.

 

I've seen a need for an educational sanction program for Gender-Based Misconduct. I believe the interests of the accused, accuser, and the overall community would be better served if there were a constructive alternative (or adjunct) to the adversarial resolution process.

 

Have people in this group been working on anything toward this end? If so, I would love to hear what kind of progress you have made so far.

 

I've thought, given the ubiquity and empirical effectiveness of BASICS for drugs and alcohol, it makes sense to model a program from BASICS' components (harm reduction, personalized feedback, brief motivational interview). So far I've developed a prototype, but am struggling on next steps, as this is an independent project - not something anyone has requisitioned of me.

 

I would love to hear from anyone with any thoughts on this. Thanks so much!

Zachary Friedman

Title IX Investigator

Student Conduct and Community Standards

Columbia University

(p): 212-851-2419, (office cell): 646-740-6637 (f): 212-854-8614, (e):

800 Watson Hall, Mail Code 2611

612 West 115^th Street, 8^th floor, New York, NY, 10025

 

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