Tuesday, October 20, 2015

The Promise of Title IX: Sexual Violence and the Law

By Alexandra Brodsky and Elizabeth Deutsch, DISSENT Magazine

Ask any student organizing against campus rape what question he or she most often hears, and the answer will likely be: why are schools handling these cases at all? The clear legal answer is Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, which requires most schools to take active steps toward eliminating discrimination on the basis of sex, including preventing and responding to sexual harassment, so that students can continue to learn. What is truly puzzling then, is not the question itself, but the persistence with which it’s asked.

When most people hear “rape,” they think “crime,” and only crime. This limit to our collective thinking about gender violence and what to do about it means that we overlook the distinction between criminal proceedings and the alternative that Title IX presents to students on campus. Instead of viewing school disciplinary proceedings for rape or harassment as failed attempts at criminal adjudication, we should understand them as means to a different end—to address sexual violence on campus as a civil rights issue.

Read the story here.

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