When new University of Oregon students arrive at the campus in Eugene, they receive a student ID card with their photo on the front. On the back — under the bar code that students use to check out books, eat in the dining halls and ride the bus — is the phone number for the team that responds to sexual violence.
That number connects a caller to a confidential advocate who will ask whether the student is currently in danger, if they need medical care and whether they have the support they need.
“We think it’s a priority to provide confidential spaces,” says Jimmy Howard, the university’s associate dean of students. “These advocates are specifically trained. They ground our work, knowing that our end goal is to prevent violence from happening in the first place.”
Nearly 26% of undergraduate women who responded to a survey said they had experienced nonconsensual sexual contact since starting college — meaning they were physically forced, couldn’t stop what was happening or couldn’t consent — according to a 2020 report by the Association of American Universities.
Federal law requires universities to respond promptly and effectively to complaints of sexual assault, generally defined as any sexual contact or behavior that happens without the explicit consent of the victim. But the investigation process isn’t always prompt or effective, students and experts say.
Title IX Reporting Too Slow
Putting a crisis help phone number on student ID cards, as they do at the University of Oregon, is strategic, not just because it makes support services easy to reach but because students get the cards when they first arrive, when students are much more at risk. Known as the “Red Zone,” the first few months of college are when more than half of campus sexual assaults happen.
All schools that receive federal money have to follow Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex. The federal rule is most often referenced in relation to athletics, but it relates to any school program, including campus safety.
It used to provide clearer protections for assault victims. In 2011, the Obama administration clarified language requiring universities to take action to prevent and address campus sexual assault, but those provisions were rolled back by the Trump administration. Those changes were made in part due to lawsuits and complaints by accused male students who claimed that they were being punished by the Title IX investigation process without a chance to defend themselves.
Schools are still required to have a Title IX officer on campus, to make sure the university is complying with the rule, but the way investigations are handled when complaints are filed has changed. The burden of proof is heavier for victims under the rule change, and universities are allowed to cross-examine accusers during live hearings. Victim advocates say this makes filing complaints difficult.
President Biden has proposed amendments to Title IX, which would remove the live hearing requirement. It’s unclear when those changes would go into effect.
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Many university programs involve education about consent and healthy relationships, as well as supports for students who experience assault, stalking or other sexual violence.
“Over the last decade we’ve seen an increase of different types of preventative and responsive programs, ” says Sarah McMahon, associate professor of social work and Director of the Center for Research on Ending Violence at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “There is an expectation that campuses are doing something and most are, but it is somewhat uneven.”
Effective Prevention Strategies
Research backs up the effectiveness of some prevention approaches in place at many universities, including:
— Early education
— Bystander interventions
— Assault resistance training
— Confidential advocates
“There’s never going to be one silver bullet that fixes everything,” says Sarah Peitzmeier, an associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Biological Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Nursing, who researches gender-based violence. “Gone are the days of students watching a one-hour video when they come on campus. Awareness isn’t enough. We need to think about a portfolio of programming.”
Early Education
At many universities, freshmen and transfer students are required to complete an online sexual assault prevention course before they arrive on campus. Some courses, including this one used at MIT, include definitions of consent and coercion and explore the impact of alcohol. Other courses may cover examples of healthy relationship interactions as well as information about assault prevention services available on campus.
Online sexual assault prevention courses have been shown to make a measurable impact on empathy and behavior, according to a 2021 study.
Bystander Intervention
At the University of Oregon, in addition to completing the prevention course, students meet with trained peer advisers during the first two weeks of fall semester. These sessions are more explicit and educate students about bystander intervention, which involves witnesses stepping in when it looks like something might happen.
“If someone is at a party and they recognize that their friend is hitting on someone who is intoxicated, we provide some tips about what to say,” Howard says. “Like, ‘Hey, it looks like they can’t make the best decisions right now. Maybe let’s go do something else.'”
[Read: College Campus Safety: Questions to Ask]
Bystander intervention was developed as a response approach to other crimes but has more recently proven effective as a way to get peers involved in helping to deescalate and even prevent sexual violence on campuses. Howard says that students at the University of Oregon who were trained in how to intervene expressed feeling more capable of speaking up. Other experts say that the approach shifts the focus away from individuals and onto other people nearby.
A 2019 review of 27 studies found that that approach increased the likelihood that a participant would intervene in a situation that could escalate into an assault, but did not reduce assault rates. Experts say the approach still has significant potential.
“It frames sexual violence as a community issue,” McMahon says. “Everybody has a role to play, and we want to be looking out for our friends.”
Assault Resistance Training
After completing a 12-hour program about sexual coercion, female first-year students at three Canadian universities were 46% less likely to be sexually assaulted than women who did not participate, according to a 2015 study of assault resistance training.
The program, which is used at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, includes training in what coercion looks like, how to overcome the expectation that women should be agreeable and not make a scene, verbal and physical self-defense techniques and positive sexuality.
“There is strong evidence that this training is effective,” says Peitzmeier, “yet less than a dozen universities use it.”
Confidential Advocates
Already in place at some universities, including the University of Oregon and Rutgers, confidential advocate programs help assault survivors get the support they need.
“Not all situations are the same,” says Lily Bohen James, co-founder of Every Voice Coalition, a nonprofit that works to combat campus sexual violence. “It may be that something happened and it kept the student from being able to study, so they got a bad grade on a test. The advocate can help them ask the professor for a redo.”
[Read: Stress in College Students: What to Know.]
An advocate will know what the support options are on and off campus, so that students can make informed decisions about what to do next. Campuses that don’t have confidential advocates often provide information online about support available to assault survivors.
Since 2016, Every Voice Coalition has pressured universities to establish more consistent responses to sexual assault and harassment. The organization has worked with legislators in states including Maine, Oregon, Hawaii and New Hampshire to pass laws to combat sexual violence and broaden support for survivors.
Finding out whether a campus has a confidential victim advocate should be one of the first steps after an assault, James says. The advocate is similar to a counselor at a rape crisis center: someone who knows what services are available and can support survivors with confidentiality.
Some students may live in the same building as a person who stalked them and might want that person to have to move somewhere else, James says. Others may want to be switched to another class or lab from a person who harassed them.
Advocates can assist with these issues and also help victims navigate the Title IX process, find off-campus counseling and figure out their legal options.
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