TW: sexual violence, substances

UNIVERSITY SEXUAL VIOLENCE PREVENTION POLICY

WHEREAS “[s]tudent [sexual harassment] survivors rarely filed official reports but often faced a variety of mental and physical health consequences” [1],

WHEREAS “victims of sexual harassment had significantly worse perceptions of institutional support than did perpetrators of sexual harassment” [2],

WHEREAS “[i]nstitutional betrayal (e.g., creating an environment where these experiences seemed more likely, making it difficult to report these experiences) was reported across different unwanted sexual experiences” and “women who reported institutional betrayal surrounding their unwanted sexual experience reported increased levels of [anxiety, trauma-specific sexual symptoms,, dissociation, and problematic sexual functioning]” [3],

WHEREAS “culture change at the [school] level often begins with public declarations of zero tolerance for harassment” and “these types of statements likely will contribute to continued reductions in instances of harassment” [4],

WHEREAS “the rates of sexual assault in general are alarming” and “students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, asexual, or pansexual [...] are even more likely to experience sexual assault” [5],

WHEREAS “women working in environments where men outnumber women, leadership is male-dominated, and/or jobs or occupations are considered atypical for women, experience more frequent incidents of sexual harassment” [6],

WHEREAS “graduate students’ dependence on faculty for financial support, letters of recommendation during and after graduate school, and other forms of access to networking necessary for career growth may amplify the risk of abuse by faculty” [7],

WHEREAS “[b]ystander-based violence prevention interventions have shown efficacy to reduce dating violence and sexual violence acceptance at the individual level” [8],

WHEREAS “bystander programs are promising from the standpoint of increasing young adults’ willingness to intervene and confidence in their ability to intervene when they witness dating or sexual violence” [9],

WHEREAS “[i]nterpersonal violence victimization rates (measured in the past academic year) were 17% lower among students attending the Intervention relative to Comparison campuses” [10]

WHEREAS “[sexual violence] and bystander education for college men may benefit from including an explicit focus on decreasing negative norms related to women and through increasing college men’s knowledge of consent and intentions to intervene” [11],

WHEREAS “incorporating student voice into decision-making and evaluation processes within institutions of secondary education [...] has led to significant improvements in school climate and academic quality, including revised curriculum and evaluation processes and increased student agency and belonging” [12] [13] [14] [15],

WHEREAS "[i]ntegration of participant and expert views, community consultation, and appropriate socio-cultural adaption appear to be critical determinants of [sexual violence prevention] program acceptability and feasibility" [16],

WHEREAS “[r]esearch on reporting finds that (1) feelings of shame, guilt, or embarrassment; (2) fears of not being believed; (3) perceptions of not having sufficient evidence to support a claim of assault; (4) fears of retaliation; (5) not wanting an assailant who is a friend or family member to be prosecuted; and (6) not wanting family or friends to know can lead those who do label an experience as sexual assault to not make an official report to police, campus authorities, or friends and family” [17] [18] [19] [20] [21],

WHEREAS “survivors did not use campus supports because they (a) experienced negative emotions (e.g., self-blame), (b) anticipated personal consequences (e.g., they will disrupt their friend group), (c) interpreted contextual characteristics of the assault (e.g., off-campus, alcohol-involved), (d) minimized the outcomes (e.g., no “severe” psychological damage), and (e) minimized the assaultive behavior(s)” [22],

THEREFORE changes to university sexual violence prevention policy should reflect the need of victims for institutional support and trust, and the general need for a complex gender-based violence education.

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