Backed by Vermont’s first woman attorney general
by Holly Sullivan, for the Community News Service
Senate lawmakers want to pass a bill to expand sexual misconduct prevention on college campuses — after shelving it last session amid scrutiny from schools and survivor advocates.
S.120 was introduced last session, but committee members decided to put a pin in it and consult reps from universities, students and sexual violence prevention specialists this past summer. Lawmakers in the education committee introduced a reworked version Feb. 23. It passed out of Senate Education on March 15, just making the crossover deadline. It’s now in Appropriations.
So far the bill has been well received and the University of Vermont is expected to present a new draft for legislators to chew on next week.
Attorney General Charity Clark did not testify last session, but she spoke to committee members Feb. 29 about her support for S.120 and personal connection to the issue — running for Vermont attorney general as the first woman on the Democratic ticket.
Her stump speech included the following line, which she recounted to lawmakers: “No attorney general had known before what it’s like to walk to your car in a dark parking lot, holding your keys in that special way that all women know.”
Clark said that her message demonstrated that sexual violence prevention is a statewide issue — regardless of sex.
“For men, it resonated because it was such a foreign concept,” she said. “And for women, because they knew exactly what I was talking about.”
Clark wants to make college campuses safer, and she appreciated state colleges’ willingness to work on the bill.
“I’m just really glad to see the work being done,” she said. “And I especially applaud the colleges who are coming with the spirit of collaboration and humility in spite of the fact that college campuses are the setting of these violent crimes.”
S.120 has garnered general support from sexual violence prevention advocates, but people are split on whether the bill should include a section requiring colleges to conduct campus climate surveys.
Emily McCarthy, a Title IX coordinator at the University of Vermont, urged committee members to remove the section on Feb. 23. McCarthy, along with a college student, looked at examples of campus climate surveys and agreed the sample survey seemed harmful to victims.
“Some of those sample surveys felt really intimidating towards students based on (the) level of detail for the questions asked and the number of questions,” she said. “We really feared (the surveys) would be retraumatizing for a student, especially when given to them in a very cold way, not in a supportive environment.”
Student data from Jennifer Barquist, a public affairs vice president for the regional branch of Planned Parenthood, contradicts McCarthy’s claim.
“We know from talking with many students that they would really appreciate the opportunity to share their experiences with sexual harm to help ensure their experience is not repeated and to promote positive changes on our campuses,” Barquist said during the same meeting.
She supports the provision as long as students can opt out at any time and that their privacy rights are made clear in the survey.
Despite provisional disagreements, all speakers seemed to support the meat of the bill — requiring colleges to address sexual violence on their campuses.
“When it comes to sexual violence, women 18 to 24 are four times more likely than other age groups to experience sexual violence,” Clark said during her testimony.
“I think that we have this opportunity — all of us who are working on this bill — to honor (young people’s) voices and make steps in a direction that removes this culture of silence from campuses,” she said.
The Community News Service is a program in which students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.
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Categories: Legislation, State Government
Could never really understand why crimes, particularly sexual in nature are treated differently on college campuses than elsewhere. If a sexual assault occurs on the grounds or nearby an institution of higher learning, is it different than one that takes place in the parking lot of the Hannafords or in Battery Park? Why are colleges expected to take on any special role in the prevention or handling of those particular crimes? If someone is attacked in the parking lot of a grocery store, should there have been more prevention programs instituted by the store owners and should the investigation be handled by the produce manager? A crime is a crime, no matter where it takes place, and should be handled by police and prosecutors. And let’s be honest, what potential rapist changes his mind when he sees a woman holding those car keys in a defensive manner? What changes a rapist’s mind is a woman holding a Glock and looking down and seeing a red laser dot on his chest. Too bad that most college campuses dont allow women that option.
Maybe if we weren’t filling our kids and people with porn 24/7/365 we might see a reduction. But no, what every you do, don’t tax or curb porn…..got to feed the beast.
We’ve perverted love by substituting lust in our lives.
…like celebrating drag queen story hour as if it is some kind of meritorious artistic pursuit instead of the sexualized performance that it is…like having parades and holidays to celebrate the various sexual proclivities that used to properly be kept under wraps and “in the closet”…
college campuses do not want bad information out in the public view/// bad for business///
UVM and Vermont schools in general are on the wrong side of sexual history. UVM in particular has decades long history of covering up scandals and handling sexual assault, harassment and violence in the wrong way. They do and allow things that are NEVER< NEVER allowed anywhere else in society.
Classic example? Remember the big hockey team scandal? Where members got around in a circle and projected sperm onto one member? The easy answer to that was "We are now recruiting for our hockey team. We have one member in good standing."
Instead, they washed it under the rug. Kept the degenerates and for decades have allowed such activities to not see the light of day.
Vermont schools are NOT safe for your children.
that and jail time, could you imagine this happening in a workplace? What would happen? What would happen to the company if it handled things like UVM? How did our state go along with this? It was on the front page of the papers, despite efforts to cover things up.
Power and money are strange motivators.
This also exposes the insider dealings taken as normal business in Montpelier.
They don’t need to consult with UVM, UVM needs to get their stuff together. Vermont if it had a backbone should be suing UVM,
well they’d have to sue themselves too with their new constitutional changes about sexuality and how the state has control of your child’s sexuality…..
Vermont is off course, surely. It’s a tangled web they are weaving.