A group of student unhappy with their school's response to their complaints of sexual assault will reportedly hold a demonstration in the nation's capital on July 15, the Huffington Post reported.
The group plans to deliver a petition directly to the U.S. Department of Education's (DOE) Washington D.C. headquarters demanding tougher enforcement of campus sexual abuse.
Women involved in the "Know Your IX" campaign are organizing both the petition and demonstration. The organization is designed to educate college females on their rights under the Title IX gender equality law and on sexual abuse in general.
The demonstration at the DOE's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) will involve numerous women who have filed complaints at their school.
Yale University alumna Alexandra Brodsky is one of 16 complainants who will participate in the protest. She said she was disappointed with the way the OCR concluded its investigation in her complaint.
"The complaint definitely resulted in some important policy changes - including the complete restructuring of the grievance procedure - but I've heard from survivors still on campus that little has changed in practice," Brodsky said. "I've heard stories of administrators trivializing victims' experiences and discouraging them from reporting - eerily similar trends to my own experience in 2009 that led me to sign the complaint in the first place."
OCR fined Yale $165,000 for failing to properly report sexual assault cases and forced the school to revise its policies, but Brodsky's assailant did not receive punishment.
"I was sent out the door with the promise that the committee would ask my assailant to leave me alone (a formal hearing would be too emotionally draining, I was told)," she wrote in a June 2012 article for Slate.
The OCR is currently investigation incidents, mishandled by the school, that have occurred at Occidental College and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Brodsky said she and her fellow protestors will ask the DOE to pressure schools to take preventative measures against sexual assault instead of acting after complaints are filed.
She also said the group wants complainants to be present while schools negotiate resolutions to the incidents, as well as the schools to "provide redress for individual victims."
