Submission: UC task force needs more student input to address sexual assault

Sexual violence on college campuses is a silent, stigmatized epidemic, and no campus is exempt. Even universities absent from the Department of Education’s list of colleges currently under investigation for violating federal laws meant to protect survivors of sexual assault – Title IX and the Clery Act – desperately need to improve their policies, prevention and response in order to adequately support their students. We have to improve all universities and create a campus culture of consent with or without a federal investigation.

As a large public university with 10 unique campuses, the University of California faces a few difficult barriers in creating that culture. The UCs have relatively less funding than private schools, and the campuses vary in size, resources and general climate. It is vital to have conversations about how to improve sexual assault prevention and response on individual campuses, but making changes UC-wide will ensure that hundreds of thousands of students receive the options they need.

The UC addressed this issue by forming the UC presidential task force on preventing and responding to sexual violence and sexual assault. The five working groups, which advise the task force, are made up of university faculty, staff, administrators and students from across the UC. They are: Title IX, campus police, student conduct, associate vice chancellor and dean of students, and prevention, advocacy and survivor services.

However, a total of only six students sit on the task force and working groups. Although the university employees involved are concerned for students, and work to provide more resources and support for students, they are not student survivors. They do not have the same exposure to the reporting process as those who have gone through it or helped their friends go through it. The ultimate goal of this work is to better help student survivors in the future, so student survivor input is essential.

To try to better represent the diverse needs and experiences of students across the UC, we have created a survey for anonymous student input. We are not statisticians, but we will summarize and organize the responses into reports for each of the five working groups and a cumulative report for the task force. We understand that we cannot speak for all students or all survivors – in fact, it would be inappropriate to try to do so. However, in order to truly be a “national leader in combating sexual violence on campus,” the UC must listen to student voices. We hope this survey will allow us to include more of the 233,000 undergraduate and graduate voices in this crucial conversation.

If you feel comfortable, please take a few minutes to fill out our survey and let us hear your voice: tinyurl.com/UCStudentSurvey.

Badalich is a fourth-year gender studies student, the Undergraduate Students Association Council student wellness commissioner, founder of 7000 in Solidarity and a student representative on the UC presidential task force on preventing and responding to sexual violence and sexual assault.

Warner is a third-year sociology student at UC Berkeley, chair of the Associated Students of the University of California Sexual Assault Commission, co-chair of Greeks Against Sexual Assault, and a student representative on the Working Group working with the UC presidential task force.