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MONDAY: Campus Sexual Assault—McCaskill to Host Second Roundtable With Stakeholders
Focusing on Title IX, Senator will hold the second of three scheduled roundtable talks
WASHINGTON – Weeks after launching an unprecedented survey of hundreds of colleges and universities, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill will hold the second of three roundtable discussions on Monday focusing on Title IX of federal civil rights law, and policies to combat rape and sexual assaults on college and university campuses.
McCaskill’s roundtable discussion will begin at 2:30 p.m. ET on Monday, June 2 in Dirksen Senate Office Building, SD-106. The roundtable is open to the press. McCaskill will be available following the roundtable for questions from reporters.
McCaskill’s first roundtable discussion last week convened stakeholders from across the country to focus on the Clery Act and the Campus SaVE Act.
McCaskill is teaming up with Senators Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut to better understand how colleges and universities handle sexual assaults on campus, as the Senators consider legislative solutions. Participating in the roundtables are current and former students who are survivors of sexual assault, campus safety and sexual assault experts, sex crimes prosecutors, university law enforcement, victim advocacy and response organizations, and university administrators.
Participants at Monday’s roundtable discussion will include:
- Lindy Aldrich—Deputy Director at the Victim Rights Law Center
- Dana Bolger—Founding Co-Director of Know Your IX
- John Kelly—Special Project Organizer of Know Your IX
- Katie Eichele—Director of the Aurora Center for Advocacy & Education at the University of Minnesota
- Anne Hedgepeth—Government Relations Manager at the American Association of University Women
- Deborah Noble-Triplett—Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Missouri
- Cat Riley—Title IX Coordinator of the Office of Title IX Compliance at the University of Texas Medical Branch
McCaskill is surveying colleges and universities to learn exactly how schools handle rapes and sexual assaults on campuses—specifically focusing on how such crimes are reported and investigated and how students are notified about available services. The survey will gauge the effectiveness of federal oversight and enforcement under Title IX federal civil rights law and the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act, commonly known as the Clery Act. Click HERE to view a sample survey.
McCaskill, Gillibrand, and Blumenthal recently sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education calling for new federal funding to investigate and enforce sexual assault laws at colleges and universities. Each year, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights handles more than 10,000 complaints against schools over violations of Title IX, but has just half the staff it did in 1980, when OCR received a third of the amount of complaints as today.
Title IX Roundtable Discussion
Subcommittee on Financial & Contracting Oversight
Monday, June 2nd
2:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. ET
Dirksen Senate Office Building, SD-106
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