Sexual Assault & Harassment

As an intern at NWLC, I am struck by the fact that I didn’t know about Title IX before this experience, yet it could have affected my life. I hope that my story can help others become aware of this important law.

My 6th grade year was marred by bullying and harassment based on sex. Had my parents or I known about Title IX’s protection of students from sexual harassment, the outcome of this experience could have been drastically different.

Early that year, as I walked through a crowded hall, a boy squeezed my butt. He and his friends laughed at my horrified expression as they ran down the hall. I was 11 and felt confused and ashamed. My mom urged me to tell the principal, which I did. I didn’t know the boy, and though I tried to identify him with pictures, nothing ever happened.

At the school dance a few weeks later, his friends called me a “slut,” and “snitch” for telling on him. I cried in the bathroom and tried to pull my skirt down further on my legs. Read more »

What do you get a law that has everything? Well, last week, just in time for Title IX’s 40th birthday (this Saturday, June 23), the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and Yale University decided to go the I-put-a-lot-of-time-into-this-present-because-I-really-care-about-you route: OCR and Yale entered into a resolution agreement to settle a complaint alleging that Yale failed to eliminate sex discrimination on campus in violation of Title IX. Happy birthday, Title IX!

The agreement resolves a March 2011 complaint by a group of 16 current and former Yale students alleging that a sexually hostile environment existed on campus. The complaint pointed to an October 2010 incident in which members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity chanted “No means yes! Yes means anal!” and other charming bon mots in front of the Yale Women’s Center.

This episode, the complaint claimed, was an example of an ongoing pattern of sexual harassment, to which the university failed to promptly or fairly respond. (No students involved received discipline.) In addition, the complaint alleged that Yale didn’t have a Title IX coordinator, as required by the law, and had an inadequate grievance process for addressing sex discrimination complaints. Read more »

After-rape is to be consumed by emptiness, isolation, fear, shame, and anger.

And after-rape at college is to be confronted by my rapist every day—on the quad, in the library, at breakfast. It is to be ceaselessly reminded of the moments in which power and control were stripped from me, in which I had no option but to let go and resign myself to the fact that this was really happening.

I was raped my sophomore year of college by a male student at my school. In the weeks after the assault, he followed me around campus, physically blocked me from going up the steps into my dorm, and threatened my friends. One Friday at three in the morning, he tried to break into my room while I sat terrified inside.

The rape and harassment changed everything for me. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I stopped studying. School was no longer on my radar screen. I was just trying to make it from one day to the next. I considered dropping out.

I found out about Title IX by chance, through a lawyer friend. She told me, “Title IX is not just about sports. It says your college can’t make you leave school because you were raped and feel unsafe. They’re supposed to make sure the campus is not a sexually hostile environment.” Read more »

The recent revelation that Yale quarterback and would-be Rhodes Scholar Patrick Witt was accused of sexual assault illustrates the importance of transparent and robust grievance procedures for addressing incidents of sexual violence at schools. The victim filed an informal complaint instead of participating in the school’s formal adjudicatory process for sexual harassment and assault allegations. It is perhaps unsurprising that she would choose the more informal route—even though that route, curiously, offers no possibility of disciplinary consequences for the accused—as those who come forward with allegations of sexual assault on their college campuses often find that the experience of dealing with their schools’ formal, cold, bureaucratic, and often unhelpful processes can be traumatizing. These are the types of barriers that those who experience sexual assault all too often face when they attempt to seek justice through their schools’ grievance processes.

But last spring, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued guidance reminding schools that sexual harassment, including violence, is a form of sex discrimination that schools must take seriously and treat as a civil rights issue. The Guidance was needed to help schools, colleges, and universities more effectively prevent and respond to sexual harassment and violence on their campuses, as required by Title IX. Read more »

It’s the first Friday of a new year – which means the first blog roundup of 2012 is here! There’s some good news and bad news to start the year off– but isn’t that how it always seems to be – including stories on the FBI’s definition of rape, advances for nursing mothers, the attack on a clinic in Florida, a fresh new model gracing the pages of Target and Nordstrom ads, and more on the recent Plan B decision. Read more »

You know the routine by now: another Friday, another roundup. This week I’ve got a few things on sexual abuse, teen sexuality at home and abroad, more on the Freedom Riders, and the plight of college graduates who haven’t had the opportunity to leave the nest quite yet. Read more »

There's been a lot in the news about sexual harassment as of late, and much of the time the news hasn't been encouraging. With that in mind, the members of the HERvotes Coalition are banding together today for a blog carnival on sexual harassment on the job and in schools. After the jump, we'll have a collection of blog posts for you from the NWLC and our coalition partners on the issue.

We’re at the end of another week, which means a new roundup. This week: sexual harassment in schools and work, some (unsurprisingly) ridiculous comments from Rush Limbaugh, Michigan’s anti-bullying law, more on women and mentors, and some new developments in the race for the next president of Egypt. Read more »

Twenty years ago, Anita Hill sat down in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and detailed how her former supervisor repeatedly made a series of vulgar advances and regularly turned professional conversations into sex-tinged talk of pornography and physical anatomy. As a result, Professor Hill was eviscerated in the Senate and in the press, where people derided her as humorless, a perjurer and (get ready for the real humdinger) as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty.” Anyone who actually watched Professor Hill testify was shocked by the disparity between her manner (cool, collected, humble) and the way she was spoken about in the press (vindictive, disingenuous, trampy). Books were published maligning her good name. One book in particular, The Real Anita Hill, received a substantial amount of press. But when the author’s later recanted and apologized for the copious lies contained in the book, there was much less of an uproar. Anita Hill was asked, on the floor of the United States Senate, if she was simply a “spurned woman” out for revenge. She received death threats and her job was threatened. At the time, Clarence Thomas categorically denied every one of the allegations despite the fact that he did not actually listen to Anita Hill’s testimony.

We know now that there were other women who worked for Thomas that were prepared to testify and corroborate Hill’s story – but the chairman of the committee, then Senator Joe Biden, declined to call any of them to the stand. Other colleagues came forward and offered to testify about Thomas' long-standing interest in pornography, but Biden declined to call them as well. Because the Senate Judiciary Committee refused to call most of the most pertinent witnesses, at the time the country was left with an incomplete picture. But over the years, the image has been filled in and today there is consensus that “virtually all the evidence that has emerged since the hearings corroborates Hill’s version of events.”

But fast forward twenty years and there are now political ads out that imply that Professor Hill’s accusations were nothing more than a smear campaign. No wonder Herman Cain’s accuser says she doesn’t want to come forward because she doesn’t want to be another Anita Hill; it is still not safe for women to publicly make an allegation of sexual harassment. Read more »

“Amber Cole,” has been been a trending topic on Twitter and much-discussed in the blogosphere after a video of a 14-year old girl engaging in oral sex with a male classmate, with another boy looking on, was posted online and immediately went viral a week and a half ago. (It turns out that her name is likely not actually Amber Cole; her real name has not been disclosed.) Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube allowed the video to remain online for four days.

Amber quickly became the subject of online gender-based bullying on her Twitter page—people called her a “slut,” “ho” and other names and asked her for sexual favors. She had to change schools as a result of bullying and harassment. (Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding, covers gender-based harassment and bullying, but it’s not clear how much of the bullying was done by classmates, as opposed to random jerks on the internet.) Read more »