The UC system’s primary confidential resource for survivors of sexual violence has an average of one professional advocate for every 12,000 students.

Campus Advocacy Resources & Education is the most trusted campus resource by survivors, according to a 2026 report by Survivors + Allies, a student-led organization that advocates for survivors of sexual violence. Yet, the UC provides no standardized funding for CARE across UC campuses, said Kat Contreras, the policy director of IGNITE at UCLA, a student group that advocates for reproductive justice and sexual violence prevention.

That’s why organizations such as S+A and IGNITE are advocating for dedicated UC funding for CARE on every campus and for changes to how Title IX offices support survivors.

“We deserve more than Title IX,” said Sara Wilf, the co-founder of S+A. “Survivor care is much bigger than Title IX. Title IX is just one form of justice. It’s not justice for every survivor, and justice is not healing for every survivor.”

CARE is designed to center and support survivors, while Title IX offices primarily investigate and punish perpetrators of sexual violence, said Grace Hong, a professor of Asian American studies and gender studies. CARE offers crisis intervention, counseling resources and services to help people navigate legal processes, according to its website.

The Title IX process can be painful for survivors, who often must relive their traumatic experiences to prove that their perpetrators are guilty, said Contreras, a fourth-year public affairs student.

“Those processes are really punishing for the survivor and ineffective at producing accountability,” Hong said.

IGNITE helped pass the Resources First Referendum in 2025, which raised the Student Wellness portion of UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association Fee by $2 per quarter to fund CARE, Contreras said. The increased funding – amounting to over $300,000 each year – allowed UCLA’s CARE office to expand its staff from one paid peer educator to 10, she added.

CARE advocates are full-time staff who provide confidential support for survivors and lead sexual violence prevention education, according to the UCLA CARE website. CARE peer educators are paid student interns who do prevention outreach, according to the website.

Still, only 60% of UC students have heard of CARE and one in four students do not know it is confidential, according to the 2026 S+A report. CARE advocates do not share survivors’ information with anyone outside of the organization unless they receive written permission or it is required by law, according to the UCLA CARE website.

“Our CARE office provides confidential advocacy and support through a fully-staffed team of advocates, while our robust prevention education program, led by a team of dedicated staff and trained peer educators, works to foster a culture of respect and consent across campus,” said Nicole Presley, the senior executive director of UCLA student resilience and mental health services, in an emailed statement.

Because Title IX offices are not confidential, employees can open an investigation without survivors’ consent when a complaint is filed, Wilf said. Almost 40% of UC students mistakenly believe Title IX offices are confidential, according to a 2024 study Wilf co-authored and published in Violence Against Women.

S+A urged UCLA’s Title IX Civil Rights office to implement a feedback form and send a campuswide email to raise awareness about sexual violence prevention and survivor resources, but UCLA Title IX said it could only implement reforms if the UC-wide Title IX office directed it to, Wilf said.

“I felt a large sense of institutional betrayal going through this process,” Wilf said. “Having very reasonable and legitimate and concrete asks, and then being dismissed over and over again was very disempowering.”

S+A also pushed the UC to amend its Title IX policies to provide protections for technology-facilitated sexual violence after it realized AI-generated sexual violence was proliferating in high schools and colleges, Wilf said.

“UC remains committed to maintaining a safe environment for all members of our community and has implemented proactive sexual harassment prevention, detection, and response efforts across the system,” a UC Office of the President spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

In February, the group sponsored the Higher Education AI Response Survivors Act, which adds definitions for technology-facilitated sexual violence and sexual harm in the California Education Code. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law in September.

The HEAR Survivors Act helps survivors of technology-facilitated sexual violence access the same resources that Title IX offices offer to other survivors, according to the S+A website. People who identify as LGBTQ+ experience disproportionately high rates of technology-facilitated sexual violence among young adults, according to a 2024 study published by the American Medical Association.

“Especially as a 21-year-old, the idea that I can be involved in an actual bill passed at the statewide level is truly incredible,” said Ashley Hodge, the co-director of the Bruin Consent Coalition – a committee under the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s Student Wellness Commission that raises awareness about sexual violence.

Wilf said she hopes national outrage over Cornell University’s handling of an alleged gang rape at the university in 2024 will fuel momentum to change state and UC policies.

A former Cornell student – identified as Jane Doe in court documents – sued seven members of Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity, alleging that they gang raped her, according to The Cornell Daily Sun, the university’s student newspaper. While four of the men were either expelled or suspended, the rest were issued no-contact orders and mandated to study sexual assault and write reflective essays, according to The Sun.

The case has sparked protests nationwide, including an Oct. 8 student walkout at UCLA.

[Related: Hundreds of UCLA students participate in national walkout against sexual violence]

“When that buzz dies down, we need to not forget that this issue did not die down with the buzz,” said Hodge, a fourth-year biology and Central and East European languages and cultures student. “It still exists. We still need to be pushing to do more to protect and support survivors.”

CARE is now working to form a Sexual Wellness Coalition of student groups and Panhellenic Council members to discuss sexual health education, sexual violence advocacy and consent education, Hodge said. Increased collaboration, she added, will amplify the student organizations’ impact.

CARE expects to hold Sexual Wellness Coalition meetings two to three times a quarter to share resources, coordinate educational programming and identify gaps in support, a CARE spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“This is very rare, and when it happens, I think it’s amazing because it reminds survivors there are a lot of us,” Wilf said. “We are powerful, and we are even more powerful when we raise our voices together.”