A recent meeting of college presidents and other officials showed that there is discontent with how their institutions are expected to handle sexual assault reports, but one administrator had a fairly simple solution.
According to Inside Higher Ed, Amanda Childress asked why schools do not simply expel students suspected of sexual assault. Childress is the director at Dartmouth College's newly implemented Center for Community Action and Prevention.
"Why could we not expel a student based on an allegation?" Childress asked at the panel, hosted by the University of Virginia. "It seems to me that we value fair and equitable processes more than we value the safety of our students. And higher education is not a right. Safety is a right. Higher education is a privilege."
She also cited statistics that said two to eight percent of sexual assault accusations are not true, but a majority of the phony reports are not done so intentionally. She also said 90 to 95 percent of sexual assaults go unreported and are often committed intentionally by repeat offenders.
The U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has had its hands full with dozens of probes spawned by complaints from students who claim their school conducted an insufficient investigation into their sexual assault report. In 2011, OCR penned a "Dear Colleague" letter that stated schools may adjudicate students with less evidence than a criminal court would need.
School leaders have always maintained that the process for a campus crime should be educational and offenders should be found "responsible" instead of "guilty."
"If we know that a person is reasonably a threat to our community," Childress said, "why are we not removing them and protecting the safety of our students?"
Gina Smith, a partner at Pepper Hamilton Law Firm, advises campuses on ways to respond to sexual assault claims. She said such a penalty would go directly against due process.
"I think the ability of our communities to rely on the processes on both sides of the equation is inextricably connected to a fair, equitable process that is thorough and based on evidence, not just conjecture, speculation and rumor," Smith said. "We cannot in individual cases just punt to statistics."
If a college does too much to ensure its campus is safe, then they are opening themselves to a lawsuit from the accused. If they perceivably do too little, which is commonly the case right now, then they are subject to face lawsuits from the accusers, such as the one UConn is fighting.
Last Monday, the first day of the panel discussion, UNC Chapel Hill president Carol Folt said "the Department of Education wouldn't have needed the Dear Colleague letter if we were doing this well."
Another sexual assault advisor, Linda Fairstein, of K2 Intelligence, said Monday that felony-level cases should not even be handled by the school. If evidence reasonably suggests a crime could have taken place, then the case should be directed to the criminal justice system.
"If there's no other forum," Fairstein told Inside Higher Ed, "now it's a matter of getting it right."