Research Paper （topic: campus violence）

CHAPTER 2 AWARENESS OF CAMPUS SEXUAL VIOLENCE Raising awareness about sexual violence is crucial for eradicating it. When people do not understand the significance of a problem, they cannot work to address it. However, people must have accurate and complete information to effectively address campus sexual violence, which requires activists, scholars, and educators to operate from a power-conscious perspective. In this chapter, I provide a brief history of campus sexual violence awareness-raising on college campuses, followed by an analysis of a few current awareness-raising events and strategies. Finally, I conclude the chapter with a discussion of ideas for more effectively engaging in awareness-raising about sexual violence on college and university campuses. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Although people, and even more specifically women of color, have been organizing around issues of sexual violence for centuries (Giddings, 1984; Greensite, 2009; McGuire, 2010), many scholars identify the 1970s and 1980s as a significant turning point for addressing sexual violence on college campuses (Bevacqua, 2000; Bohmer & Parrot, 1993; Corrigan, 2013). During this time, activists worked to raise awareness about the problem of sexual violence, striving to interrupt myths about sexual violence and help people understand the nature of sexual violence. In the 1970s, feminists initiated and engaged in a variety of consciousness-raising groups, working to support women in coming to understand the ways they experience sexism. In addition to addressing sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace, reproductive justice issues, and political and cultural power of women, feminists also continued to raise awareness about interpersonal violence, including sexual violence (Bevacqua, 2000). Activists in the 1970s through the 1990s also engaged in a variety of activist campaigns designed to raise awareness about sexual assault, including marches, protests, and demonstrations, some of which still exist in some form today. For example, Take Back the Night, The Clothesline Project, and Vagina Monologues are examples of longstanding awareness-raising events related to sexual violence. In 2006, Aishah Shahidah Simmons released the film NO! The Rape Documentary reminding viewers about the unique relationship between racism, sexism, and sexual violence for Black women. Each of these events contributes to the on-going discussion related to sexual violence on college and university campuses today. Part of the awareness-raising related to sexual violence in the 1970s and 1980s was identifying the insidiousness of acquaintance sexual violence, which at the time, was referred to as “date rape” (Koss, 1985; Warshaw, 1988). Feminists in the larger community had already identified sexual violence as a part of the cycle of abuse in domestic violence. A breakthrough study in 1987 illuminated the problem of sexual violence in acquaintance or dating situations among college students. Koss and colleagues surveyed more than 6,000 students on 32 campuses, highlighting the reality that one in four college women experienced a completed or attempted sexual assault during her college career (Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987). This work paved the way for activists and educators to raise awareness about sexual violence as a significant problem beyond that of stranger rape. In consultation with the Ms. Foundation for Education, Robin Warshaw (1988) advanced Koss’ work through the groundbreaking book I Never Called It Rape, which illuminated and gave language to the experiences of thousands of college women as it related to sexual violence. Although many feminists and activists already knew that they had been experiencing rape and sexual violence in dating relationships, Koss and Warshaw helped to validate their experiences, giving language to their experiences and legitimizing it through research. Unfortunately, this early research failed to account for identities and experiences with oppression beyond that of gender and sexism, leading to limited information about the ways that racism, classism, ableism, and homophobia also influence people’s experiences with sexual violence. STRATEGIES AND EVENTS Today, activists and educators build on this history to raise awareness about sexual violence on college campuses. Activists employ a variety of strategies and organize many events to raise people’s awareness about sexual violence. In this chapter, I organize these approaches into three major categories: (1) prevalence of sexual assault; (2) definitions and dynamics of sexual violence; and (3) resources for survivors in the aftermath of sexual assault, including reporting procedures. Activists and educators may use organized messaging strategies, including press releases, brochures, and posters; intentional anonymous infiltration of mainstream spaces, including posters and art; grassroots information-sharing, including social media and informal discussions; among a variety of other strategies to raise awareness about sexual violence. The purpose of raising awareness related to sexual violence is to make more people aware of the problem to garner more support for policy change, support for survivors, and accountability for perpetrators, ultimately eradicating sexual violence. Prevalence As described above, one of the significant aspects of the history of sexual violence awareness-raising includes making people aware of the prevalence and types of sexual violence happening on college campuses. Today, the message that one in four women will experience sexual violence in her college career is prevalent and students report a high level of awareness about the significance of sexual violence (Walsh, Banyard, Moynihan, Ward, & Cohn, 2010). Activists and educators share this message through educational programs, including orientation and mandatory online training for new college students. Further, reporters frequently focus on this statistic when reporting about sexual violence in written and television media (Baumgartner & McAdon, 2017; McCummings, Lingerfelt, & Salon Young Americans, 2018). In fact, one organization to address sexual violence by engaging men as active bystanders is even called “One in Four” (One in Four, n.d.). Despite the increased awareness of the prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses, some challenges exist. Examining the effectiveness of awareness about the prevalence of sexual violence through a power-conscious lens illuminates some of these challenges. One of the challenges is that few college students understand what this number means. Despite knowing that sexual violence happens at alarmingly high rates on college campuses, many students still subscribe to stranger-danger myths, meaning that they believe that most sexual assaults are committed by strangers, rather than people known to the victims (Fisher & Sloan, 2003; Hayes-Smith & Levett, 2010; Linder & Lacy, 2017). Further, many college students also subscribe to the myth that perpetrators of sexual violence primarily target pretty, white cisgender heterosexual women as victims (Hockett, Saucier, & Badke, 2016). Finally, the one-in-four statistic also contributes to an over-focus on victims, resulting in the invisibility of perpetrators. Stranger-danger Myths Although students may be aware of the high rates of sexual violence on college campuses, their strategies for protecting themselves still revolve around stranger-danger myths. In a study recently conducted at a southeastern university in the US, cisgender women students identified carrying pepper spray and other weapons, not walking alone at night, and watching their drinks at parties and bars as their primary strategies for reducing their risk of sexual violence (Linder & Lacy, 2017). Further, most campus safety websites offer tips for preventing sexual assault and many of these tips focus on victims’ responsibility to prevent sexual assault and focus on stranger danger. These safety tips primarily focus on women as potential victims and men as potential perpetrators (Bedera & Nordmeyer, 2015; Lund & Thomas, 2015). Although it is important for people to be cognizant of their safety in a variety of settings, it is also important for people to recognize that they are more likely to be targeted by someone they know than by someone they do not know. In fact, 86% of sexual assaults happen when a perpetrator targets someone they know (Black et al., 2011). Further, most sexual violence happens between people of similar socioeconomic classes and happens intra-racially (between people of the same race; Black et al., 2011). With the exception of Native American women, most people are assaulted by people of the same race. Given the history of colonization and current context of ineffective legal strategies for addressing violence perpetrated by non-Native people on Native American reservations, Native American women are often targeted by white perpetrators (Deer, 2015, 2017). Despite this history, most white women are socialized to fear the “other,” specifically Black and Latino men who are strangers to them. Media representations of perpetrators of sexual violence contribute to this narrative about perpetrators of sexual violence, resulting in people misperceiving who perpetrators of sexual violence are (Meyers, 2004; Patton & Snyder-Yuly, 2007). The misunderstanding of the dynamics of sexual violence may contribute to an increased risk of sexual violence because students fail to understand the appropriate times to intervene and “protect” themselves from the wrong people. Although it is never a potential victim’s responsibility to protect themselves from sexual assault, people – especially women and gender nonbinary people – do engage in a fair number of strategies to reduce their risk of being targeted for sexual assault. However, because people misperceive and misunderstand the dynamics of sexual violence, they are usually not protecting themselves from the people most likely to cause harm – people they know, trust, and are in relationship with. Teaching students to understand the nuanced dynamics of sexual violence may contribute to a reduced risk of violence. When students understand that people they know are more likely to target them as potential victims of sexual assault, they may be more astute to some warning signs perpetrators display. Pretty White Women Myths Because research frequently fails to disaggregate data based on identities other than a binary gender, the one-in-four statistic about campus sexual assault primarily applies to heterosexual, white, cisgender women. Most research on campus sexual violence includes an overrepresentation of white women and rarely collects demographic information on sexual orientation, ability, or gender identity (Linder, Williams, Lacy, Parker, & Grimes, 2017). Specifically, in a content analysis of 10 years of research about campus sexual violence, 20% of articles included demographic information on sexual orientation, 0.9% on ability status, and 1.4% on gender identity (allowing people to identify as something other than man or woman; Linder et al., 2017). Although the research may include transgender women, women with disabilities, or queer women, the researchers do not know because they did not ask, making the experiences of people at these intersections invisible. Further, although 72% of researchers collect demographic information related to race, fewer than 22% of articles included an analysis based on race. Researchers use racial demographic information to describe their samples, but not to analyze their findings (Linder et al., 2017). The few studies that have disaggregated data based on identities, including race, ability, sexual orientation, and gender identity, illuminate that perpetrators often target people with minoritized identities at higher rates than their nonminoritized peers. Studies are difficult to interpret because researchers define and measure sexual violence and identity categories differently. The most frequently cited studies in the US that disaggregate data based on identities beyond gender include the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NIPSVS) conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (Black et al., 2011) and the Association of American Universities’ (AAU) Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct (Cantor et al., 2015). The NIPSVS study includes a national sample not specific to college students, but indicates that women of color (with the exception of Asian women) experience significantly higher rates of rape than white women (Black et al., 2011). The AAU study, specific to college students, reports mixed results related to race and sexual violence, but indicates that queer and trans students and students with disabilities experience exceptionally high rates of sexual violence (Cantor et al., 2015). People at the intersections of more than one of these identities experience even higher rates of sexual violence (Porter & McQuiller Williams, 2011). Perpetrators likely target minoritized populations at higher rates because they believe they can get away with it and because entitlement and power are the root of sexual violence. The mere existence of minoritized people makes some heterosexual, cisgender, white men uncomfortable (either consciously or unconsciously) because minoritized people interrupt the status quo. Interrupting current power structures results in people from dominant groups believing that they are being disempowered, resulting in them acting out and causing harm to minoritized people to maintain their power over people who do not share their identities and experiences, as illustrated throughout history in the US and other Western, colonized countries. The implications of focusing on only one type of victim in campus sexual violence education are significant. When people are taught to picture a pretty, white, cisgender, straight woman as the primary victim of sexual violence, they likely fail to consider other people as potential victims. Failing to consider that other people may also be victims of sexual violence means that well-meaning students, educators, and administrators likely unintentionally minimize some students’ experiences with sexual violence, resulting in them not receiving the care they need. For example, when a gay male student discloses to an academic advisor that he wants to drop a class because he is struggling with what he describes as a “personal issue” with someone in the class, it is unlikely the academic advisor would think of sexual violence as the potential “personal issue” unless the advisor had power-conscious training (or personal experience) related to sexual violence. Given that victims are portrayed as white, cisgender heterosexual women, the academic advisor may consider sexual violence as a potential issue if a white, cisgender, heterosexual woman presents this problem to them, but not in the case of a gay male student. The academic advisor may not think to offer resources related to interpersonal violence to the male student and he may miss out on potential resources that could serve him. Additionally, if the resources available to survivors of sexual violence consistently portray women in their materials or are only available through a “women’s center,” this student may not think that the services are for him, which I will explore in Chapter 3. Invisibility of Perpetrators Closely related to the challenge of the myth of stranger danger is the challenge of failing to name perpetrators as responsible. The one-in-four statistic fails to name and address perpetrators of sexual violence, which subliminally contributes to placing disproportionate responsibility on victims to prevent sexual violence. Although remaining victim-centered is an important component of sexual violence response, it may be less than effective for raising awareness about preventing sexual violence. Focusing heavily on victims in media coverage and research may result in perpetrators, especially white, middle-class perpetrators, remaining invisible. Many of the ways activists, scholars, and journalists frequently report statistics sound as if the sexual assault just happens, and no one is responsible for committing it. What if, instead of focusing exclusively on victims of sexual violence, the statistics focused on the number of perpetrators of sexual violence? Framing discussions about sexual violence by naming the number of perpetrators and how many people they target may result in an increased focus on addressing perpetrators of sexual violence. For example, by stating, “Research indicates that 11.4% of college men have committed acts of sexual violence” (Gidycz, Warkentin, Orchowski, & Edwards, 2011), people may have a different understanding of who perpetrators are and an increased attention to addressing perpetrators of sexual violence as a form of prevention. What if scholars, activists, and journalists spent as much time and energy on statistics about perpetrators as they do on the statistic about one in four women experiencing sexual violence? What if college students could specifically name that one in 10 men has committed an act of sexual violence? How would this shift the responsibility and focus of sexual violence prevention? Similar to the research about victimization, most of the participants in studies about perpetration include white, middle-class, heterosexual, and assumingly cisgender men (Linder et al., 2017). Although the participants of these studies include primarily white, heterosexual, and cisgender men, researchers frequently fail to name the racial or other identities of their participants. If a study had over 80% Black or African American participants, researchers would most certainly describe the racial identity of their participants, and likely attribute many of their findings to race; however, because whiteness is invisible and considered the norm in mainstream Western society, researchers fail to name the relationship between whiteness and perpetration that likely exists. Working from the tenet of the power-conscious framework to name and interrupt dominant group members’ investment in and benefit from systems of oppression, scholars and activists must do more to name perpetrators’ responsibility for sexual violence. Definitions and Dynamics Other approaches to raising awareness about campus sexual violence include targeting people’s emotional senses to raise awareness about the definitions of sexual assault and the dynamics of how sexual violence happens. Activists frequently work to raise awareness about prevalence, definitions, and dynamics through events like Take Back the Night, Carry that Weight, or online campaigns where people share their stories and experiences with sexual violence. In this section, I will examine a few specific awareness-raising events that take place on college and university campuses through a power-conscious lens. I choose to focus on a few examples of events to illustrate the complexity of developing power-conscious awareness events, rather than to critique or praise any particular event. Although I focus on specific events in this chapter, the principles, questions, and issues raised apply to many events and activities. Finally, I will conclude this section with an examination of social media as a specific strategy activists use to raise awareness about sexual violence through a power-conscious lens, illustrating the challenges and benefits of social media as a tool for activism and awareness. Walk a Mile in Her Shoes Community and campus organizers frequently organize an event called Walk a Mile in Her Shoes (WAMHS). Activists designed this event to engage men in better understanding the experiences of women by asking them to walk a mile in high heels. The event took off on college campuses in the early 2000s, with many campuses hosting WAMHS marches and rallies. However, thanks to the critical thinking of many scholars and activists (Bridges, 2010; Kannis & Iverson, 2017; Nicolazzo, 2015), many campuses have stopped hosting these events. WAMHS events are particularly harmful on many levels, including making light of a very important subject. The atmosphere at most WAMHS events is light-hearted and includes lots of laughter about men trying to walk in high heels. Although many organizers attempt to engage in education at these marches, people who attend the marches report a lot of giggling and goofing among the participants, even during times when participants should be listening to organizers share information about the prevalence and dynamics of sexual violence (Bridges, 2010; Kannis & Iverson, 2017). In addition to this being sexist because it assumes that being a woman means wearing high heels, or being otherwise feminine, it also perpetuates cissexism, which is the belief that all people must exist on a gender binary and meet the expectations put upon them by society in that binary. Comments overheard at WAMHS events are often homophobic and transphobic in nature (Bridges, 2010; Nicolazzo, 2015). The reality is that homophobia and transphobia are significant contributors to sexual violence, so the fact that an event exists to raise awareness about sexual violence by perpetuating rape culture is astounding. Although some people may argue there are ways to do an “appropriate” WAMHS, I am doubtful. This is one of those events that we should likely just do away with! Take Back the Night Take Back the Night (TBTN) is another crucial awareness-raising event that has made a significant impact on people’s awareness of sexual violence. Additionally, TBTN marches often have a secondary impact of creating spaces of healing for survivors. Generally, TBTN marches consist of a speak-out that includes opportunities for people to share their stories related to sexual violence and potentially a main speaker who addresses sexual violence through a keynote address, spoken word poetry, or music. Before or after the speak-out, participants in TBTN events march through their campus or community at dusk, yelling chants and carrying signs about rape and sexual violence. TBTN marchers sometimes experience harassment from onlookers, illustrating the significance and importance of the events. Ironically, TBTN marches also frequently include “protection” from police officers on the march routes. TBTN marches are an example of events that have evolved over time to be more mindful of power and identity. For example, many TBTN marches started as women’s only spaces – spaces for survivors to come together, share their stories, and engage in healing. They were designed as women-only events as a way to ensure that perpetrators would not be present at the event. As one can see, the gender-exclusive nature of the events is rooted in the faulty assumptions that only women are survivors and only men are perpetrators and that people only identify as either men or women. Over time, many TBTN marches have changed to be gender-expansive, meaning that people of all genders are welcome to participate as long as the focus stays on creating a space for survivors to share their stories as part of their healing processes. For activists and educators who continue to engage in TBTN marches and planning, considering questions related to power and privilege remain crucial. For example, given what we know about the relationship between racism and the criminal justice system, how does police presence impact people of color who attend or may want to attend the event? Similarly, are all of the speakers at the event cisgender heterosexual nondisabled white women? What are the ways that other people’s stories may be centered in this event? Given the exceptionally high rates of sexual violence among people from minoritized communities, how are their experiences represented? Finally, although TBTN events are frequently held as “marches,” is the route accessible for people who use wheelchairs? Is there an intentional focus on reaching people with physical disabilities and providing means of participation beyond marching? Are sign language interpreters available and present? The Role of Social Media One of the strategies many activists use when engaging in campaigns designed to reach people through their emotions is by infiltrating mainstream spaces that may not typically focus on sexual violence. For example, the #MeToo campaign that recently took place on Facebook and Twitter after several allegations of sexual harassment by high-profile men in Hollywood caught on quickly and showed up in newsfeeds across the globe. This campaign worked because people could not avoid it. If a person regularly uses Facebook, it would have been hard for them to not to see at least a few posts with the #MeToo hashtag. Eventually, people would have to stop and take notice that at least something was going on related to sexual harassment. Similarly, Emma Sulkawicz’s art project at Columbia University worked because she drew attention to the problem of campus sexual violence by carrying a mattress around campus for an entire academic year. She carried the mattress in protest of her institution failing to hold the person who harmed her accountable for his actions. The campaign caught people’s attention because it was hard not to notice the woman in class with a mattress beside her. Eventually the Carry that Weight campaign caught on and activists on campuses all over organized mattress displays and shared their stories using the hashtag #CarryThatWeight on social media. Some people may critique social media as a form of activism, calling it “slacktivism” meaning that it does not create any real change because it is “just online” (Cabrera, Matias, & Montoya, 2017). This argument fails to consider the dynamics of power and privilege in a variety of ways. First, online spaces are “real life.” They have significant implications for our day-to-day well-being and influence the ways that we interact with each other. Additionally, online spaces may be some people’s only option for engaging in awareness-raising as a form of activism. Given the ramifications of participating in “in the streets” activism, some students do not have the luxury of participating. For example, being arrested for civil disobedience has a significantly different impact on students of color, transgender students, and poor students than it does on their white, cisgender, middle-class peers. Given the realities of racism in criminal justice systems and in hiring practices, people of color may experience more significant consequences in the criminal justice system and will surely experience more significant consequences for having a record (Ross, 2014). Given that white people with a criminal record are more likely to be hired at most jobs than people of color without a criminal record (Ross, 2014), imagine what it might be like for a person of color with a criminal record trying to find a job. Similarly, unemployment rates among transgender people are exceedingly high (Center for American Progress, 2015; Ross, 2014), pointing to similar problems related to employment and criminal records for transgender people. Further, given that jail cells are segregated by gender, they are very dangerous places for transgender people. Finally, although middle-class people may be able to afford legal costs for engaging in civil disobedience, this additional expense could impact poor and working-class students’ ability to afford rent, food, and other basic necessities. Even for activists who engage in less potentially dangerous activities than civil disobedience, the consequences for their actions can be time-consuming and significant. Participating in organized protests, marches, and sit-ins requires time that students who have to work to support themselves do not always have. Further, activist spaces often center or focus on one issue at a time, rendering the experiences of people with multiple minoritized identities invisible, resulting in them not feeling comfortable to participate. For example, organizing around issues of sexual orientation frequently focuses on the experiences of white and cisgender people, making it unlikely that transgender and queer people of color will be heard in these spaces. Social media provides an outlet for people who frequently do not see themselves in local movements to find community and opportunity to engage with other people whose experiences more closely align with their own. Awareness of Resources Another important strand of awareness-raising strategies on college campuses includes letting people know about resources for survivors in the aftermath of sexual violence, including campus adjudication processes. Research about campus reporting systems indicates that many survivors of sexual violence choose not to report their experiences of sexual violence to campus officials (Orchowski, Meyer, & Gidycz, 2009; Zinzow & Thompson, 2011). If survivors do choose to discuss their experiences with assault, they do so with family members and friends (Orchowski et al., 2009). Survivors share a number of reasons for not reporting their experiences with sexual violence, including that they do not think they will be believed, they do not think their experience is “bad” enough to be considered sexual assault, and that they do not know how or where to report (Orchowski et al., 2009; Zinzow & Thompson, 2011). As one may suspect, people with minoritized identities, who are frequently harmed by systems of authority and power, report at even lower rates than their dominant group peers. For example, women of color, gay and trans* people, and people with disabilities report sexual assault at alarmingly low rates (Findley, Plummer, & McMahon, 2016; Ollen, Ameral, Reed, & Hines, 2017; Thompson, Sitterle, Clay, & Kingree, 2007). Campus adjudication processes can be particularly confusing, especially in times when laws and policies are constantly in flux about ways campuses must respond to and address campus sexual assault. Although some campus administrators have maintained consistent reporting procedures throughout legislative attempts to address sexual violence on campus, others have changed their reporting processes and who hears cases of sexual violence multiple times in the past few years. I will discuss the specifics of reporting and adjudication processes in Chapter 3; the purpose of this chapter is to examine campus educators’ strategies for letting students know about the processes. Educators and administrators typically use orientation programs and email communication as a strategy for letting people know about campus adjudication processes. Typically, students must sign a form or click a box indicating that they have read the student code of conduct before they can register for classes. Clicking the box allows the institution to say that students have read, and should therefore know, the processes for handling any kinds of conduct issues, including sexual violence. Similarly, students may find the process for reporting sexual violence available on many university websites, yet the processes are confusing and sometimes difficult to find (Franklin, Jin, Ashworth, & Viada, 2016). Depending on the institutional type, colleges and universities may have their own police departments and a sexual assault response office (Title IX offices in the US), leading to additional confusion. Media coverage and legislative involvement in determining whether or not colleges and universities should be responding to crimes, rather than violations of the student code of conduct, have made the process of reporting even more confusing for students. Unfortunately, even when universities do provide education and awareness about these processes, many students ignore or minimize them because they do not think they will need this information. Then, when a student is in crisis, they do not know where to turn. Applying a power-conscious lens to this practice leads to questions about the accessibility of the information available for students and to whom the materials are directed. For example, this is one of the few places in sexual violence work where some attention is paid to perpetrators, yet this attention generally seeks to protect their rights, to provide a “fair and impartial” adjudication process for them. One additional attempt to raise awareness about sexual assault is educating people on how to respond if a friend discloses to them their experience. Research indicates that the first response a survivor receives after disclosing an experience with sexual violence significantly influences their recovery from the trauma (Borja, Callahan, & Long, 2006; Sabina & Ho, 2014). Given that most people disclose to friends or family members before they disclose to a counselor, administrator, or police officer (Sabina & Ho, 2014), it is important for the general public to be well-educated on appropriate responses to sexual violence. Teaching people to respond to survivors by empowering them, letting them decide how to move forward, and believing that something happened is very important. Educators and activists may do this through passive programs, such as posters and social media campaigns or through educational face-to-face programs. In addition to teaching the basics of effectively responding to survivors of sexual violence, it is also important to examine the nuances of the role of power in these responses. CONCLUSION Although women of color have organized for centuries around addressing sexual violence at the intersection of racism and sexism (McGuire, 2010), many campus activists primarily focus on sexism as the root of sexual violence. Some activists strive to address racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression in their organizing, but when relying on limited historical perspectives and power-neutral research, nuance related to other forms of oppression often gets lost. Raising awareness about campus sexual violence through a power-conscious lens remains important in a climate where more and more people are invested in addressing campus sexual assault. Failing to account for the ways in which identities and power influence people’s understanding of sexual violence results in less-than-effective strategies for preventing and eventually eradicating sexual violence. In Chapter 3, I will examine responses to campus sexual violence, highlighting current campus practices and advocating for more power-conscious approaches to effectively respond to sexual violence on college and university campuses. MLA (Modern Language Assoc.) Linder, Chris. Sexual Violence on Campus : Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response. Vol. First edition, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018. APA (American Psychological Assoc.) Linder, C. (2018). Sexual Violence on Campus : Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response: Vol. First edition. Emerald Publishing Limited.

CHAPTER 3 RESPONDING TO CAMPUS SEXUAL VIOLENCE Student activism, fueled by institutional betrayal, has contributed to an increased focus on responding to sexual violence on college campuses. Student survivor-activists have been pushing their campuses to more effectively respond to sexual violence through appropriate adjudication processes. Many anti-sexual violence student activists are survivors themselves, and feel betrayed by their institutions for failing to take their cases of sexual violence seriously (Linder & Myers, 2017). Institutional betrayal, the notion that a person feels harmed as a result of an institution on which they rely for support or survival not protecting them from harm (Smith & Freyd, 2014), fuels many student activists. Institutional betrayal, rooted in betrayal trauma theory, provides a framework for understanding student activists’ push for increased response to sexual violence on campuses. Authors of betrayal trauma theory and institutional betrayal assert that when people are harmed by people or an institution on which they rely for support or survival, the consequences of the harm are more severe than when they experience harm from a stranger or an institution with whom they do not have a relationship (Smith & Freyd, 2014). For example, when a person experiences violence from a caretaker, their symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are more severe than when a person experiences violence from a stranger. Many survivor-activists profiled in the media illustrate the tenets of institutional betrayal. For example, Emma Sulkowicz, a student at Columbia University, drew attention to her experience of institutional betrayal by dedicating her senior thesis to illustrating the harm she feels as a result of her perception that Columbia did not take her case seriously as the perpetrator remained on campus until graduation (O’Connor, 2015). Similarly, John Kelly, a student at Tufts University, described how his institution’s sexual misconduct policy only included women as victims of sexual violence, making his assault by another man invisible in the university process for addressing sexual assault (Kelly, 2014). Finally, Dana Bolger, Alexandra Brodsky, Annie Clark, and Andrea Pino have worked to draw attention to their experiences of feeling betrayed by their institutions by filing complaints with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) (and support other students in doing so) alleging that their institutions failed to appropriately respond to their experiences with sexual violence (Kingkade, 2015). Although most student activists would indicate that they want to stop sexual violence from happening in the first place, their strategies for addressing sexual violence primarily focus on institutional response to assault after it happens. Most campuses spend a significant amount of time, money, and resources responding to campus sexual violence after it happens (Silbaugh, 2015). Given the current climate of increased legislation, litigation, and student activism related to campus sexual violence, administrators frequently have no choice but to spend a significant amount of resources on campus violence response. In fact, most policies related to sexual violence incentivize responding to sexual assault over engaging in activities to prevent sexual assault from happening in the first place. As Silbaugh (2015) astutely notes: Title IX strongly incentivizes the post-assault focus. Colleges may want to reduce the overall rate of sexual assault, but they risk liability under Title IX primarily for a bad response to an assault that has already occurred, rather than for ineffective efforts to reduce the overall rate of assault. (p. 1052) In this chapter, I will examine three significant aspects of campus sexual violence response: policy, adjudication systems, and survivor support services. Examining the evolution of these three aspects of campus violence response provides a context for understanding current practices on college campuses related to campus violence response. In Chapter 5, I will provide suggestions for more power-conscious strategies for responding to sexual violence. CAMPUS SEXUAL VIOLENCE POLICY IN A US CONTEXT Several federal laws and administrative guidelines inform the ways colleges and universities in the US respond to sexual violence. Title IX, the Clery Act, and the Office of Civil Rights administrative guidelines (commonly referred to as the Dear Colleague Letter) are three major influences on campus response to sexual violence. Title IX In the US, the federal government relies on Title IX as the primary mechanism for addressing sexual violence on campuses. Passed in 1972, the purpose of Title IX was to ensure gender equity in education in the US. Title IX applies to any educational system that receives federal funding, including K-12 schools, colleges, and universities (Tani, 2017). One of the most noted impacts of Title IX on schools and colleges is that it increased the number of opportunities for girls and women to participate in sports in schools and colleges (Silbaugh, 2015); however, Title IX has also influenced a number of other school and campus practices, including the ways that campuses deal with peer-to-peer and teacher-to-student sexual harassment. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes prohibition of sex discrimination, yet when the Act was passed, most people did not think of sexual harassment or sexual assault as a form of sex discrimination (Silbaugh, 2015; Tani, 2017). Sex discrimination primarily focused on equal opportunity for women in the workplace and did not include attention to sexual harassment. Although sexual harassment came to be interpreted as sex discrimination under Title VII in the 1980s, it still only applied to the workplace, not to educational settings; therefore, Title IX became an important avenue for addressing sexual harassment in educational settings. Two specific cases in the 1990s significantly influenced the interpretation of Title IX related to sexual harassment in educational settings: Gesber v. Lago Vista Independent School District and Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (Tani, 2017). The first case, Gesber, involved teacher-to-student sexual harassment and resulted in the Court holding that “monetary damages under Title IX were only available if an official who had authority to address the alleged harassment had ‘actual knowledge’ of it and, in addition, demonstrated ‘deliberate indifference’ in responding” (Tani, 2017, p. 1861). The Davis case involved peer-to-peer sexual harassment, and the court held the same – administrators needed to have knowledge that sexual harassment was happening and deliberately ignore it to be found responsible under the law (Tani, 2017). Although both of these cases involved situations in K-12 settings, the findings hold for colleges and universities as well; in order to have equal access to educational opportunities, girls and women have a right to environments free of sexual harassment. Through a power-conscious lens, it is important to note that Title IX has historically been interpreted as a law that protects girls and women from discrimination and harassment, yet men and gender nonconforming people also experience sexual violence. Specifically, transgender and gender nonconforming people experience extremely high rates of sexual violence (Cantor et al., 2015), so relying on a law that centers women and girls results in less-than-effective strategies for supporting other people who experience sexual violence. Although Gesber and Davis successfully created an avenue for students to use Title IX as a law to hold institutions accountable for effectively responding to sexual assault, they did little to support school and college administrators in effectively preventing sexual harassment and assault because the “actual knowledge” standard resulted in incentivizing administrators to “bury their heads in the sand” (Tani, 2017, p. 1861) so that they would not know about the harassment. Without actual knowledge of harassment, they had no legal responsibility to address it, and therefore no liability. Clearly, most school and college administrators would prefer to prevent sexual harassment from happening in the first place, yet the structure and interpretation of the law related to sexual harassment and assault results in them having little opportunity to do so. For a long period of time, most legal counsel advised school and college administrators to avoid knowledge of harassment so that they did not have a risk of liability under the law. The Clery Act The Clery Act, a federal law signed in 1990, provided another avenue for students and parents to hold institutional leaders accountable for addressing sexual violence after it happened. Jeanne Clery’s parents founded Security on Campus (SOC), a nonprofit watchdog organization, after Jeanne was raped and murdered as a college student (Kiss & Feeney White, 2016). SOC advocated for the passage of the Clery Act, which required campus administrators to disclose campus crime statistics and timely warnings for crime on and around campus. The Clerys argued that Jeanne had no way of knowing that the area around campus was dangerous and that had she known, she may not have been attacked, leading to the call for campus administrators to be more explicit about the crime they knew about (Clery Center, n.d.; Kiss & Feeney White, 2016). Similar to Title IX, the Clery Act incentivizes response to sexual assault and harassment, rather than prevention. Although the ultimate goal of reporting the numbers of crimes on and around campuses is to prevent crime, the heavy administrative expectations for complying with the law takes time and resources away from engaging directly with prevention of crime, including sexual assault. Similarly, when examined through a power-conscious lens, the Clery Act also places responsibility for preventing crime on potential victims, rather than potential perpetrators. Although it is important for people to be aware of their surroundings and to have knowledge and information about ways to reduce their risk of violence, it is even more important to stop the violence from happening in the first place. Further, an overreliance on making people aware of criminal activity likely perpetuates myths about who criminals are based on the ways in which crimes are reported. For example, most campus crime alerts only go out when the crime presents an ongoing threat to the campus community, which is often interpreted as a situation in which the alleged perpetrator is a stranger or nonstudent. Additionally, most campus crime alerts related to sexual violence only go out when the situation involves a stranger rape, which contributes to the dominant narrative and myth that stranger rape is common. Campus crime alerts may also contribute to the racist underpinnings of the perception of perpetrators as men of color. In a cursory review of email alerts sent out on several campuses over a period of two years, one striking aspect of the alerts is that race is only mentioned if the person is Black or Hispanic/Latino (Linder, 2015). Very few alerts include a racial identifier of white, contributing to a culture of belief that perpetrators of sexual violence are primarily strangers and men of color. Despite these challenges, the work of SOC led to increased attention to sexual violence on college campuses in the 1990s and 2000s. Specifically, SOC supported many survivors of sexual violence as they spoke out about their experience with sexual harassment and assault and advocated for campuses to take more responsibility for protecting their students from crime (Tani, 2017). Further, SOC supported student victims who spoke out against their perpetrators, despite institutions requiring them to sign nondisclosure statements in relationship to their adjudication processes. SOC successfully argued that a student’s right to know about the crime on their campuses superseded the perpetrator’s right to privacy, resulting in nondisclosure statements becoming illegal (Tani, 2017). Guidance from the Office of Civil Rights The advocacy work of SOC and student activists led the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to issue additional guidance for schools and universities in relationship to sexual harassment and assault in schools and colleges in 2001. Although the OCR could not be involved in hearing specific sexual assault cases or determining the responsibility of a perpetrator, it could hold institutions accountable for having effective and consistent practices for hearing sexual assault cases by recommending that the US government withhold federal funding or by fining colleges and universities for failing to appropriately address sexual violence (Tani, 2017). Specifically, the OCR indicated that the Supreme Court’s findings related to Title IX held for private right-to-action, but not to the agency’s enforcement of Title IX. For example, even if an individual student did not sue a school or college, the OCR could investigate a school or college’s response or lack of response to sexual harassment and assault and fine the school for failing to effectively address the problem. Further, the OCR’s guidance provided insight for schools and colleges about how they could know about sexual harassment or assault. Essentially, the OCR’s guidance indicated that schools and colleges had a responsibility to address sexual harassment and assault on their campuses no matter how they learned of it – through formal reports from students or parents, or more informal mechanisms including informal reports to teachers, faculty, and staff. Additionally, the OCR’s guidance required that campuses consider a clear and convincing evidence standard for hearing sexual assault cases and required campuses to discontinue the use of nondisclosure statements for victims of assault (Tani, 2017). The first OCR guidance in 2001 got little attention because the OCR did not actively enforce the policy and because the political leadership in the White House changed shortly after issuing the guidance. However, after another bout of student activism, the OCR issued a second set of guidelines in 2011, commonly referred to as the Dear Colleague Letter (DCL). The 2011 version of the OCR guidance set out more specific guidelines for campuses to address sexual violence, including attention to the role of a Title IX Coordinator, expectations for adjudication processes, and requirements for educating campus community members about sexual violence (Tani, 2017). The DCL received significant attention from college and university leadership and created sweeping changes to many campuses’ adjudication processes across the country. Campus legal counsel sought to interpret the 2011 DCL and quickly implement the recommendations, including identifying a Title IX Coordinator and implementing “prevention” programming on campuses. The haste to comply with the new guidance resulted in significant confusion for many campuses, including confusion about who should serve in the role of a Title IX Coordinator, whether survivors could still access confidential services on campus, and whether campus judicial offices and boards should continue hearing sexual assault cases. Although the DCL certainly contributed to a positive shift in the culture related to addressing sexual assault by centering victims in campus adjudication processes, it also caused a significant amount of confusion for students and administrators alike. Students report that they have no idea where they can go to report an experience of sexual violence (McMahon & Stepleton, 2018). Many campuses have centralized the process to a Title IX Coordinator as recommended in the OCR guidance, which has ultimately led to greater confusion for students because it is different from where and how students report other kinds of student conduct code violations. The OCR guidelines are administrative in nature, meaning that they can be changed at any time by new leadership in the administration of the federal government (Tani, 2017). New guidance has not been issued at the time of this writing, although the US federal administration rescinded the 2011 OCR guidance after the 2016 presidential election, resulting in even more confusion on college and university campuses. Just as university administrators were beginning to get a handle on how to implement the guidelines, they changed again. Fortunately, because new guidance was not issued, campuses were not required to change anything they were currently doing, but could change things if they chose. Some boards of trustees have pressured campus administrators to change their practices to be more closely modeled after the criminal justice process (namely a higher standard of evidence – in most cases, “clear and convincing” (Morse, Sponsler, & Fulton, 2015), which favors alleged perpetrators. In some states, politicians have advanced legislation requiring campus administrators to rely on criminal justice systems, rather than campus adjudication systems, to address campus sexual violence (Bauer-Wolf, 2017). Given the focus on campus adjudication processes, I now turn my attention to examining history and context relevant for understanding sexual violence and criminal justice systems, and campus adjudication systems. CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND ADJUDICATION SYSTEMS Although most people have been socialized to see policing and other aspects of the criminal justice system as neutral and fair, this is far from the truth. As it relates to sexual violence, the criminal justice system, a close cousin of campus adjudication processes, has caused significant harm to members of minoritized communities, specifically Black and Indigenous women and queer and trans* people. Failing to consider the history of criminal justice systems and the ways they have caused harm to minoritized communities results in less-than-effective responses to sexual violence on college campuses. History of US Criminal Justice System and Sexual Violence As European colonizers worked to organize early legal systems in what is now considered North America, they focused on the issues of wealthy white men who were the only people who could access legal systems. With regard to sexual violence, this meant that men were the only people who could make a claim of sexual violence, and the crime was considered a property crime because white men’s property – typically their daughter or wife – had been harmed (Freedman, 2013). The law distinguished between “rape” and “seduction.” A charge of rape required “carnal knowledge,” which typically meant physical violence and evidence of physical violence. Seduction laws focused on men coercing women into sex, resulting in a woman then being required to marry the man because they were no longer “pure.” In fact, the consequence if a man was found guilty of “seduction” was frequently to marry the woman he seduced. Women were literally forced to marry their perpetrators and had no agency to pursue legal proceedings on their own. Because the crime was a property crime and men were the only people who could hold property, only men could file charges related to seduction (Freedman, 2013). In addition to the sexist interpretation of the law, enactors of the new criminal justice system also perpetrated racism. Specifically, people interpreting and enacting the law did not consider the rape of nonwhite women a crime and frequently held Black men accountable for rape even when they did not commit it (McGuire, 2010). White men raped enslaved women (primarily Black and some Indigenous women) at extremely high rates as a form of economic exploitation and terrorization to control them. Because the children of enslaved women became the property of the slave owner, owners frequently raped enslaved women as a way to increase their labor supply and therefore economic power (Freedman, 2013; McGuire, 2010). Further, colonizers used rape as a tool of terrorization directed at Indigenous communities, which continues to this day. Native American women experience higher rates of sexual violence than any other racial group and are the only group of women who experience higher rates of interracial, rather than intraracial, rape (Black et al., 2011; Deer, 2017). Despite these experiences, Black and Indigenous women could not access the criminal justice system set up to serve white, owning-class people. After slavery legally ended in the mid-1800s in the US, white men continued to rape Black women as a way to exert power and control. Although formerly enslaved people were technically considered “citizens,” they still could not access the criminal justice system, so white men were not held accountable for raping Black and Indigenous women (Donat & D’Emilio, 1992; McGuire, 2010). Further, as formerly enslaved people began to gain greater access to power through owning businesses, white men used rape as one of their many tools of terrorization and control. When white men would loot Black-owned businesses, they would also rape Black women as a way to further illustrate the level of control they still maintained. Although Black communities resisted and persevered, they did so without the support of legal systems (McGuire, 2010). At the same time white men raped Black women with impunity, Black men were being held accountable through formal legal systems and through lynch mob mentalities. Because white men consider white women the ultimate symbol of purity in mainstream US culture, white men forbid white women’s engagement with Black men post-emancipation (Freedman, 2013). White communities frequently mobbed and lynched Black men for merely interacting with white women, even in situations where white women consented and engaged in relationships with Black men. This lynching took place in public settings and without formal engagement of the criminal justice system, though police officers were frequently involved as instigators of the lynchings. Further, most of these lynchings of Black men happened at the same time as white men were raping Black women who had little recourse (Freedman, 2013; Giddings, 1984). The US legal system is especially damaging to Indigenous women who live on tribal lands as it relates to rape and sexual violence. European colonizers used rape as a tool of colonization and terrorization during the founding of North America and this legacy of colonization and violence continues today. People living on tribal lands have sovereignty from the US government, meaning that they can set up their own legal processes, rather than participate in the mainstream US criminal justice system (Deer, 2017). However, nontribal members cannot be prosecuted in a tribal court. Given that Indigenous women experience exceptionally high rates of sexual violence by white men, this results in white men not being held accountable for their actions on tribal lands. Although Congress passed the Major Crimes Act in 1885 to claim jurisdiction over felony crimes on tribal lands, the law is rarely enforced and federal prosecutors rarely take on cases of sexual violence on tribal lands, despite Indigenous people’s pleas that they do (Deer, 2017). Reports from 2009 through 2015 indicate that most cases that federal prosecutors decline to pursue on tribal lands include physical or sexual assaults, sexual exploitation, or failure to register as a sex offender. Between 2005 and 2009, federal prosecutors declined to prosecute 67% of cases related to sexual violence on tribal lands (Deer, 2017). Today, poor and people of color are disproportionately represented as offenders in the criminal justice system (Alexander, 2010). The criminal justice system is particularly harmful to Black and Latino people through increased policing and harsher sentencing. Given that most rapes happen intra-racially (between two people of the same race), many women of color are reluctant to participate in involving the criminal justice system in putting more men of color into a system that treats them unfairly. Further, given the history of how women of color have not been considered legitimate victims of sexual violence, they often do not trust the criminal justice system to have their best interests in mind. The criminal justice system favors white, wealthy, cisgender, heterosexual men, who are frequently perpetrators of sexual violence (Mouilso, Calhoun, & Rosenbloom, 2013). Because wealthy, white, cisgender, heterosexual men are considered the norm and have access to the greatest amount of positional power (e.g., serving as judges and lawyers, socializing future judges and lawyers), their behaviors are rarely questioned and they frequently have access to a number of resources that allow them to work through criminal justice systems, rather than be held accountable through them. Campus Adjudication Processes Although campus adjudication systems are independent from the criminal justice system, they have been set up in a similar manner. They frequently favor people with dominant identities – people who are used to working within systems for fair and impartial accountability. Members of minoritized communities are likely to be just as skeptical of campus authority and adjudication processes as they are of community ones because they are so similar in nature. Further, campus adjudication processes present a conundrum for campus administrators in terms of the types of cases they should hear. Although the purpose of campus adjudication processes is to hear violations of the student code of conduct, many student codes of conduct have overlap with federal, state, and local laws. For example, although rape and sexual assault are frequently defined as crimes at the state level, they are also included in student codes of conduct, contributing to confusion about whether students accused of sexual violence should participate in campus adjudication systems, criminal justice systems, or both (Cantalupo, 2009). The attention to campus sexual violence has led to significant public discussion about whether or not campus adjudication systems should even be hearing sexual assault cases (Cantalupo, 2012; Gray, 2014). Some people argue that because sexual assault is a felony offense that campus adjudication processes are not appropriate for the cases; rather, they argue, the cases should go through the criminal justice process and the university can respond based on the outcome of the criminal justice process. This makes intuitive sense because campus adjudication processes do not hear cases for other crimes like murder or robbery; however, most colleges and universities include “sexual misconduct” in their codes of conduct, therefore requiring them to hear cases on sexual assault because they include it as a violation of a student code of conduct similar to including plagiarism and abuse of university resources. Further, many codes of conduct include procedures for dismissing or suspending a student after some criminal charges (e.g., murder) have been made, pending the outcome of the investigation. Advocates of campus adjudication processes hearing sexual assault cases argue that the criminal justice system takes too long, resulting in a victim of sexual assault having to continue in classes with the person who assaulted them while the process takes place. Further, because campuses are their own communities with their own standards, advocates also argue that they can have higher standards for behavior than the general community (Cantalupo, 2012). For example, although the criminal justice system requires a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard because the consequences of being found responsible for a felony may include jail time, the standard for a campus system may be “more likely than not” because the consequences for being held responsible for a violation of the code of conduct may be suspension or expulsion, but that does not infringe upon a person’s freedom. Because it is a privilege, rather than a right, to access colleges and university campuses who all have their own sets of admissions standards, universities may have higher standards for behavior. Given that mainstream systems like the criminal justice system frequently cause further harm to members of minoritized communities, some people have organized their own community accountability processes to address sexual violence (INCITE!, 2001; Patterson, 2016). As described in Chapter 1, women of color have been organizing around issues of sexual violence for centuries. Because they were not included in or recognized by the criminal justice system, they were forced to figure out ways to address sexual violence in their own communities without the structure of a legal system. Additionally, when the criminal justice system did start to recognize women of color as legitimate victims, the processes were still unclear and unfair, resulting in many women of color choosing not to engage the criminal justice system, but rather to create their own processes for accountability and support for each other. In the next section, I examine the role and significance of survivor support systems on college and university campuses. SURVIVOR SUPPORT SYSTEMS Although policy plays a significant role in the ways colleges and universities respond to sexual violence, it is also important to note the ways activists and advocates on college campuses have worked for decades to draw attention to issues of sexual violence and to effectively support survivors in the aftermath of sexual violence. Although in recent years more people have become involved in legislating and professionalizing the services for survivors of sexual violence (Bummiller, 2008), many people, primarily women and queer people, have organized to support each other in the aftermath of sexual assault on college campuses for decades (Bevacqua, 2000). As with women of color in the larger community, minoritized people on college campuses have been forced to develop their own strategies for accountability and support because formal systems frequently do not consider their issues and concerns as legitimate. For example, many women’s centers on college campuses in the US established in the 1970s and 1980s included an explicit focus on addressing violence against women (Cottledge, Bethman, & Vlasnik, 2015). Women’s centers became a primary support place for survivors of sexual violence and engaged in their own radical strategies for accountability, including calling out perpetrators and organizing awareness-raising campaigns (Bevacqua, 2000). Staff in these centers worked to support survivors, advocate for survivors at the institutional level, and raise awareness about interpersonal violence across the institution and beyond. Additionally, many staff in these offices worked to navigate a political minefield that could potentially cause more harm to survivors they strove to support. Knowing that formal campus adjudication systems and criminal justice systems were less than effective at addressing issues of sexual violence, advocates in women’s centers worked to educate those within these formal systems at the same time as they worked to protect survivors from institutional betrayal, or further harm by systems. Over time, services for survivors of interpersonal violence both on and off campuses became more professionalized and institutionalized, resulting in them becoming less radical and more white (Bummiller, 2008; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, 2006). Although most grassroots community organizations started as a result of collaborations between women of color and white women, and heavily focused on issues of concern for people with multiple minoritized identities, as the organizations have become more professionalized, the makeup of the organizations changed. Today, most campus and community organizations struggle to identify women of color and women with additional minoritized identities to work in their programs. As services for survivors moved from the margins to the mainstream, providers began to rely more and more on police systems and formal adjudication systems as partners (Bummiller, 2008; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, 2006). Today, many funding sources to support survivors of interpersonal violence are tied directly to working with police agencies, resulting in them not being safe or effective for many minoritized communities, including people of color and queer and trans* people. Further, the “professionalization” of the field (e.g., requiring people to have social work degrees and additional credentials) has resulted in the focus shifting from grassroots community accountability, rooted in women’s lived experiences and expertise, to a focus on “best practices,” which frequently cater to one type of victim, namely those with a multitude of dominant identities (INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, 2006). Response processes on college campuses are similar. With the welcomed increase in attention to addressing sexual violence came an unwelcome scrutinization of grassroots organizing in campus-based women’s centers. Although many women’s centers started in the 1970s as grassroots organizations dedicated to raising awareness about and improving the lives of women on campus, the increase in attention to sexual violence has resulted in a shift to professionalizing services related to sexual violence. Specifically, although many women’s centers are situated organizationally with other identity-based centers like multicultural centers and LGBT resource centers, the increased attention to supporting survivors has shifted the focus of many of these centers to be more counseling-based, rather than explicitly identity-based social justice centers. Further, as a result of the increase in attention to mandatory reporting on college campuses, many women’s centers have lost their confidentiality privilege. Mandatory reporting refers to the responsibility that university officials (faculty, staff, and other employees) have to report any instance of sexual violence of which they are aware. The purpose of mandatory reporting is to protect future victims of sexual violence by intervening with perpetrators to hold them accountable. Unfortunately, the manifestation of mandatory reporting more closely aligns with protecting the institutions from lawsuit for failing to act if they knew or should have known of a predator on campus (Engle, 2015). Because most predators are not held accountable for their actions (RAINN, n.d.), mandatory reporting fails to result in any actual change to perpetration rates on college campuses. However, mandatory reporting has led to previously safe spaces, like women’s centers, not being safe for survivors of sexual violence because if they report their experience with sexual violence to a staff person there, the staff person must report it to the institution and the survivors may lose the choice they had as to whether or not they wanted to engage in a formal reporting process (Engle, 2015). As sexual violence response became more professionalized and mandatory reporting gained more attention, many services for survivors of sexual violence moved to counseling and health centers to ensure confidentiality for victims. Unfortunately, most health and counseling centers function more from a medical model with a hint of social justice, rather than an explicitly power-conscious framework. Failing to consider the role of power and privilege in sexual violence results in less-than-effective strategies for addressing it. Addressing sexual violence through a medical model results in unintentional victim-blaming through focusing on ways that victims can prevent themselves from being assaulted, rather than addressing the power that perpetrators hold and intervening with perpetrators and potential perpetrators. In some cases, campuses have moved toward establishing centers specific to relationship and sexual violence prevention and response. Again, although this is a welcome step in recognizing the significance of sexual violence on college campuses, it is also concerning that prevention and response are housed in the same location. As illustrated throughout this chapter, campus leaders are often forced to spend most of their resources on responding to sexual violence after it happens, rather than preventing it from happening in the first place. Organizing prevention and response efforts in the same location will likely result in response efforts over-taking prevention efforts. Additionally, given that prevention work should focus primarily on perpetrators and potential perpetrators (which I will examine in greater detail in Chapter 4), housing prevention programs in the same location as services for survivors is problematic. Survivors should have spaces for healing independent of perpetrators of sexual violence. Further, the skill set (and likely the people) responsible for supporting survivors in their healing processes are different than the services for intervening with and interrupting perpetrator behavior; therefore, different staff should be responsible for different functions. As it currently stands, most of the programs called “prevention” programs in campus sexual violence centers are actually more in line with awareness programs, as outlined in Chapter 2. Awareness programs increase people’s consciousness about the problem of sexual violence, which is an important component in eradicating sexual violence, yet awareness programs do not actually engage with perpetrators or potential perpetrators to stop sexual violence from happening in the first place, which should be the role of prevention programs. CONCLUSION An overreliance on policy for addressing campus sexual assault leads to the continued disproportionate focus on responding to sexual assault, rather than preventing it from happening in the first place. Some people may argue that effectively responding to sexual violence will reduce its prevalence by dissuading perpetrators from engaging in sexual violence; this has not yet occurred. Despite an increase in incarceration rates for sexual violence (Travis, Western, & Redburn, 2014), rates of sexual violence have not fallen (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2004; Black et al., 2011). Further, the continued focus on responding to sexual violence as a form of prevention takes away from more explicit primary prevention strategies focused explicitly on potential perpetrators, rather than only addressing perpetrators after they have engaged in sexual violence. Additionally, over-relying on policy to address sexual violence privileges dominant group members. Policies and systems of any kind – including criminal justice systems, sexual assault response teams, mental and physical health systems – were constructed by and for members of dominant groups. Even the most well-intended administrators and politicians frequently write policy with dominant group members in mind. Policymakers typically write policy in response to an issue or a problem, resulting in the policy being limited and focused on a few individuals. Even when policymakers construct policy to capture as many situations as they can, the interpretation and implementation of the policy is still limited. For example, most sexual violence policy on college campuses accounts for a “typical” sexual assault of a cisgender heterosexual woman by a cisgender heterosexual man by including gendered pronouns related to perpetrators and victims and through discussion of typically gendered body parts in policy (Iverson, 2017). Myths surrounding sexual violence further contribute to the misinterpretation and misapplication of these polices. For example, because most people believe that strangers commit most sexual assault and that most victims should try to fight off their rapists, holding perpetrators accountable for acquaintance assault is often difficult. MLA (Modern Language Assoc.) Linder, Chris. Sexual Violence on Campus : Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response. Vol. First edition, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018. APA (American Psychological Assoc.) Linder, C. (2018). Sexual Violence on Campus : Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response: Vol. First edition. Emerald Publishing Limited.

CHAPTER 4 PREVENTION OF CAMPUS SEXUAL VIOLENCE Although most people who work on college and university campuses classify most activities related to addressing campus sexual violence as a form of prevention, actual prevention work focuses on stopping sexual violence before it happens, rather than responding to it after it happens. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the US provides a socio-ecological model adopted by many college and university campuses for preventing sexual violence. Specifically, the CDC highlights the significance of examining the relationships between four layers of factors to “better understand violence and the effect of potential prevention strategies” (CDC, 2018; para 1). The model examines the “complex interplay between individual, relationship, community, and societal factors … that put people at risk for violence or protect them from experiencing or perpetrating violence” (para 1). The CDC further explains three levels of prevention: primary, secondary, and tertiary as an important framework for addressing violence. Primary prevention focuses on stopping perpetration or victimization before it happens; secondary prevention focuses on intervening immediately after violence has occurred to protect the victim; and tertiary prevention focuses on the long term, after sexual violence has occurred – attempting to prevent further violence and harm to the community (CDC, 2004). Unfortunately, the vast majority of programming on college and university campuses focuses on secondary and tertiary prevention, as mandated by most federal policies guiding administrators on college and university campuses. As outlined in Chapter 3, most legislation and policy related to sexual violence do not allow administrators and educators to focus on primary prevention of sexual violence; instead, they require them to develop more effective procedures for responding to sexual violence (a form of secondary prevention), which takes away from their abilities to engage in innovative prevention strategies. Although some would argue that effective response to sexual violence will result in a reduction of sexual violence because perpetrators will be less likely to engage in sexual violence if they believe they will be held accountable for their actions, statistics do not yet support this notion. Although rates of incarceration for sexual violence have increased in the past several years (Travis et al., 2014), rates of sexual victimization have not decreased (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2004; Black et al., 2011). Effective response to sexual violence is an important piece of the puzzle in eradicating sexual violence, yet it should not supersede prevention initiatives focused on intervening with perpetrators or potential perpetrators. Taking note of the overemphasis on response, some pieces of legislation, including the Campus SAVE Act, require campuses to engage in educational programs in which all students must participate (Duncan, 2014). Unfortunately, campus administrators, educators, and researchers know little about the effectiveness of most educational programs and workshops. Most educational programs have not been effectively evaluated to determine their impact on the prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses (Culture of Respect, 2017; Newlands & O’Donohue, 2016). Evaluation of programs consistently focuses on students’ satisfaction with the program or measure changes in their attitudes and beliefs about sexual violence but does not actually measure prevalence of sexual violence (Anderson & Whiston, 2005; Brecklin & Forde, 2001; Newlands & O’Donohue, 2016; Vladutiu, Martin, & Macy, 2010). Further, most programs are evaluated in a one-time capacity, resulting in little information about the long-term efficacy of the programs (Brecklin & Forde, 2001; Newlands & O’Donohue, 2016). In lieu of effective evaluation of educational programs, educators and administrators frequently focus on “best” or “promising” practices to develop their educational strategies. For example, NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education has developed a program called The Culture of Respect, which has developed a CORE Blueprint for campus administrators and educators to use as a guide to address sexual violence on campus (Culture of Respect, 2017). The CORE Blueprint describes the process by which they include practices in the guide, including an overview of how ideas are selected as an “evidence-based” approach or not. Specifically, authors of the guide clearly articulate the challenges of evaluating educational programs and include solid rationale for “promising directions,” which includes that there is an “expected effect of the program because it is based off sound theory and previous research” (Culture of Respect, n.d., para 3). Unfortunately, given the history of failing to account for power and identity in research, this means that many of the practices considered “promising” are likely based on dominant ideas related to sexual violence, including the overreliance on teaching potential victims how not to get assaulted, rather than teaching potential perpetrators not to rape. Further, most “promising” or “best” practices center on dominant group members and fail to consider the experiences of people with minoritized identities, including people of color, people with disabilities, and queer and transgender people. Finally, best practices usually address a symptom of a problem, rather than shifting the underlying frameworks that cause the problem in the first place (Nicolazzo, 2016). In this chapter, I examine the evolution of sexual violence education programs on college campuses, including the research and evaluation practices commonly used to examine the effectiveness of the programs. Further, I use a power-conscious lens to highlight ways well-intended educational programs may unintentionally harm some students, including potential victims of sexual violence. In Chapter 5, I will argue for strategies to more effectively engaging in awareness, response, and prevention of sexual violence from a power-conscious lens. HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF CAMPUS SEXUAL VIOLENCE EDUCATION Activists and educators have been working to educate students about campus sexual violence for decades, although most documented evaluation of these programs emerged in the 1980s and 1990s (Brecklin & Forde, 2001). Consistent with the histories of most minoritized groups, educational programs related to sexual violence on college campuses originally emerged from consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s (Bohmer & Parrot, 1993). Because campus administrators were not yet addressing sexual violence on campus, feminist activists and educators frequently took the lead in educating women about the risks of sexual violence, including strategies for reducing their risk. Although feminists knew it was not the responsibility of potential victims to end sexual violence, they also knew that the opportunities to intervene with perpetrators and potential perpetrators were limited because of the immense power perpetrators and potential perpetrators held and the lack of understanding of the dynamics of sexual violence as a crime of power and dominance, rather than of miscommunication (Brownmiller, 1975; Warshaw, 1998). As more people began to understand the significance of sexual violence on college campuses, educational programs evolved and have become integrated into campus policies and practices. One of the greatest challenges in educating students, faculty, and staff about sexual violence is the varied definitions and understandings of sexual violence. In this book, I am intentionally focusing on students’ experiences with physical sexual violence, yet even physical sexual violence exists on a continuum and includes a number of definitions and terms. Researchers use a variety of terms and definitions to understand students’ experiences with physical sexual violence, resulting in lack of clarity around the prevalence of physical sexual violence and strategies for educating students about assault. For example, researchers use the terms unwanted sexual touching, sexual coercion, incapacitated rape, forcible rape, and sexual assault to examine prevalence of sexual violence. As one can imagine, attempting to address each of these types of violence in educational programming for college students presents a significant challenge. Even if educators use language accessible to students, helping students to understand the wide variety of experiences with sexual violence requires time to explore complex and nuanced concepts, something not available to most sexual violence educators who are forced to complete their work in one-time presentations at orientation or through online modules that combine education about high-risk alcohol use and sexual violence. Educational programs related to campus sexual violence have ranged from teaching potential victims (mostly women) self-defense and other strategies for reducing their risk of sexual violence to interrupting common myths that people have about sexual violence to teaching people bystander intervention skills (heavily focused on men) in hopes that people will intervene when they see potentially dangerous situations (Newlands & O’Donohue, 2016). Throughout all of these strategies, educators weave a strand of teaching students about the risks of heavy drinking, leading to confusing messages about the role of alcohol in sexual violence. Unfortunately, very few programs directly intervene with perpetrators or potential perpetrators to address sexual violence. Most programs focused on engaging men focus on them as allies to address sexual violence, rather than as potential victims or as potential perpetrators. Failing to directly engage perpetrators and potential perpetrators of sexual violence results in less-than-effective strategies for preventing sexual violence on college campuses. Further, most educators facilitate sexual violence education workshops from an identity-neutral perspective, meaning that they fail to consider the role of power, privilege, and identity in sexual violence educational programming. Sexual violence is frequently portrayed as a situation involving alcohol and miscommunication, rather than an act rooted in dominance and control. Further, most workshops on sexual violence center cisgender, heterosexual, nondisabled white women as the primary victims of sexual violence, rendering other potential victims invisible. The failure of educators and administrators to consider power and dominance as the underlying cause of sexual violence results in ineffective educational programs to eradicate sexual violence on college campuses. A review of the literature indicates that most sexual violence educational programs fall into five major categories: (1) single-gender programs directed at women as potential victims; (2) single-gender programs directed at men as potential allies and bystanders; (3) mixed-gender programs focused on defining sexual violence and dispelling rape myths; (4) bystander intervention programs directed at men or mixed-gender groups; and (5) programs designed to reduce the risk of sexual violence by teaching students about the role of alcohol in sexual violence. Recently, some educators have begun to develop workshops focused on consent as part of an overall strategy of educating students about sexual violence. In the following sections, I will provide an overview and power-conscious critique of educational programs in each of these categories, illuminating considerations for administrators and educators when implementing educational programs related to sexual violence. Single-gender Programs Directed at Women as Potential Victims Rooted in the tension somewhere between feminist consciousness-raising and chivalrous attempts to protect women, many prevention programs take the form of risk-reduction programs directed toward women as potential victims. These programs may consist of self-defense programs aimed at teaching women how to physically defend themselves or develop strategies for verbally resisting assault (Hollander, 2014). Some risk-reduction programs directed at women as potential victims also include attention to high-risk drinking (Clinton-Sherrod, Morgan-Lopez, Brown, McMillen, & Cowell, 2011). Although alcohol is correlated with sexual violence, it is not the cause of sexual violence. In fact, researchers indicate that alcohol only exacerbates the sociocultural factors surrounding sexual violence on college campuses, rather than creating the sociocultural factors (Gray, Hassija, & Steinmetz, 2017). In other words, even if college students reduce their rates of high-risk drinking, sexual violence would not end. Factors associated with power, entitlement, and gender-role ideology contribute to a culture of sexual violence more than alcohol. Many risk-reduction programs (including Haven – one of the most popular online training programs on college campuses) focus on the correlation between alcohol use and sexual violence, teaching students that if they reduce their alcohol intake, they also reduce their risk of sexual violence; however, these same programs fail to address the role of alcohol in sexual violence perpetration, which I will examine in greater detail in a later section. Finally, a few programs have focused on teaching women signs of potential perpetrators, giving them the tools they need to identify potentially risky situations, without placing the responsibility completely on them for ending sexual violence. Although educational programs focused on women as potential victims are an important component of a comprehensive educational program, if implemented haphazardly or without attention to power, they may contribute to a culture of victim-blaming or perpetuating the notion that women, or any potential victims, are responsible for ending sexual violence. Further, if organized and implemented without appropriate education, these programs may contribute to perpetuating myths about sexual violence. For example, many self-defense workshops focus on stranger danger, teaching women to protect themselves from a potential sudden attack. Most cases of sexual violence among college students are perpetrated by someone known to the victim, and often in a dating or social situation in which it would be unlikely that a potential victim would use physical self-defense tactics (Black et al., 2011). Focusing heavily on self-defense perpetuates misinformation about the dynamics of sexual violence, potentially contributing to a culture in which potential victims are unaware of accurate signs of potential perpetrators of sexual violence. Given that perpetrators of sexual violence target women and nonbinary people at alarmingly high rates (Cantor et al., 2015), it is important from a power-conscious lens to focus on women and nonbinary people as potential victims of sexual violence. However, exclusively focusing on women as potential victims also contributes to a culture in which men and nonbinary people are not considered potential victims, resulting in them not being believed when they report experiences of sexual violence. Further, when programs primarily target women as potential victims of sexual violence, men and nonbinary people may not even see themselves as potential victims, resulting in increased risk for sexual violence and a lack of understanding of their experiences as sexual violence. Programs focused on teaching patterns of perpetration, or the strategies that perpetrators use to target victims, may be the most promising of programs focused on potential victims, yet they must be implemented through a power-conscious lens that recognizes a variety of people as potential victims of sexual violence. Unfortunately, most programs focused on potential victims and risk reduction focus on high-risk alcohol use and self-defense and are directed almost exclusively toward women. Single-gender Programs Directed at Men as Potential Allies and Bystanders In the 1990s, as attention to campus sexual violence grew and as feminists made clear the responsibility for ending sexual violence lies with perpetrators of sexual violence (Warshaw, 1998), not victims, educators began to implement single-sex programming directed at men. Programs like One in Four, The Men’s Project, and the Men’s Program emerged on college campuses (Barone, Wolgemuth, & Linder, 2007; Foubert, Newberry, & Tatum, 2007; Hong, 2000). The purpose of these programs was to engage men as allies in addressing campus sexual violence. The philosophy underlying these programs is that most men are “good” men, meaning that they would not commit sexual violence but that they frequently interacted with peers who do commit sexual violence (Barone et al., 2007; Foubert et al., 2007; Hong, 2000). Based on research that indicates that most perpetrators of campus sexual violence are serial perpetrators (Abbey, Parkhill, Clinton-Sherrod, & Zawacki, 2007; Lisak & Miller, 2002), the intent of educational programs targeting men was to teach them effective strategies for intervening with their male peers who exhibited signs of hostility toward women and who may perpetrate sexual violence. More recent scholarship has challenged the notion that campus perpetrators are serial perpetrators, resulting in the need to examine the philosophy underlying many of these programs (Gray et al., 2017). Educational programs directed at men focused on teaching them about sexual violence by assuming they were not perpetrators and could intervene with perpetrators. Unfortunately, this philosophy resulted in ignoring research that clearly exemplifies that there are some patterns of perpetration and that some risk factors do indeed allow educators and administrators to identify people who may be at higher risk of committing sexual violence. Although it is unhelpful to approach all men as potential perpetrators of sexual violence, it is equally unhelpful to ignore what we do know about perpetrators and potential perpetrators of sexual violence. Few educators and administrators avoid developing programs directed at people who are considered high-risk for experiencing sexual violence, yet those same educators and administrators avoid approaching people who are at high-risk for perpetuating sexual violence. Given that most perpetrators of sexual violence are men and that the risk factors include being involved in all-male groups like fraternities and athletics (Gray et al., 2017), it is perhaps not surprising that administrators and educators refrain from addressing these groups as it requires a direct confrontation of power. Further, given that these groups are particularly powerful on campus, addressing them as groups that shelter a high number of perpetrators of sexual violence is particularly risky for administrators and educators, especially those engaged in sexual violence work who are typically women, sometimes nonbinary, and people with less access to formal and informal power. Unfortunately, programs that unilaterally focus on men as potential allies to end violence against women also run the risk of causing further harm by perpetuating enlightened sexism, or engaging in behaviors that appear to be egalitarian but are actually harmful to women (Armato, 2013). In fact, bystander intervention programs often perpetuate the notion that women need men to protect them and that men cannot be victims of sexual violence, which are ironically, two beliefs that form the foundation for a rape-supportive culture. Finally, programs focused on men as potential allies may also result in increased rates of sexual violence by providing perpetrators with a shield to protect them from being identified as a perpetrator of sexual violence. Some men use their participation in men’s programs to get closer to their potential targets to cause harm (Linder & Johnson, 2015). Mixed-gender Programs Focused on General Sexual Violence Education Another strategy that educators have used since the 1990s includes general education programs about sexual violence that target all students. The purpose of these programs is to teach students definitions and understandings of sexual violence, interrupt myths about sexual violence, and develop empathy for survivors of sexual violence (Brecklin & Forde, 2001; Newlands & O’Donohue, 2016). Feminists and sociologists in the 1970s argued that people’s acceptance of myths related to sexual violence led to a culture in which many people blamed victims for being assaulted and minimized and ignored perpetrators’ behaviors, resulting in a hostile climate for survivors of sexual violence and a climate in which survivors did not report their experiences (Burt, 1980; Malmuth, 1989; Murnen, Wright, & Kaluzny, 2002). As examined previously, when survivors do not report, there is no chance of perpetrators being held accountable for their actions, which many people believe leads to increased sexual violence. Research on general education programs indicates that participants generally experience a decline in rape myth acceptance immediately after the program, but the results of the long-term effects of these programs are mixed (Anderson & Whiston, 2005; Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994; Newlands & O’Donohue, 2016). Further, little is known about the actual behavior change of people engaged in sexual violence education workshops. It is difficult to measure decreased rates of perpetration as an outcome of educational workshops. Researchers typically measure attitudes and beliefs about rape and sexual violence, which some researchers have connected to propensity to rape, although the connection is mixed (Anderson & Whiston, 2005; Brecklin & Forde, 2001; Newlands & O’Donohue, 2016; Vladutiu et al., 2010). However, one thing is clear: despite educators’ best efforts at reaching college students in a variety of educational workshops, rates of sexual victimization on college campuses have not changed in 60 years (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2004). Given that most education programs are designed from a generic, one-size-fits-all perspective, it is not surprising that they fail to reach the vast majority of students on campuses. Students frequently believe the information does not apply to them or that no one they know is a victim or perpetrator, so they do not make meaning of the information in ways that stick. Further, given that perpetrators target minoritized populations at higher rates than their nonminoritized peers, educational programs must illustrate the complexities of sexual violence as a tool of power and control exerted over more than just heterosexual cisgender white middle-class women. Dynamics of sexual violence look different for different populations, and those dynamics should be included throughout educational programs. Although some educators indicate that an “easy way to do this” (Culture of Respect, 2017, p. 52) is to use gender-neutral pronouns and visible people of color in their educational materials, this is only the first step in addressing the complexity of sexual violence. Because the dynamics of oppression impact people differently based on their social identities, simply replacing white students with students of color in videos, marketing materials, and skits will not address these complex dynamics. For example, sexual violence among lesbian women looks very different than sexual violence between a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman; failing to address these dynamics in educational programs does a disservice to all involved. Unfortunately, there is no “easy” way to address sexual violence and its complex, nuanced dynamics. In order to educate students effectively about sexual violence, educators and administrators must make a commitment to move beyond one-time required educational programs and integrate accurate information about the dynamics of power, privilege, oppression, and sexual violence into the curriculum, policies, and practices of the institution. I will explore the specifics of this in more detail in Chapter 5. Bystander Intervention Programs Rooted in the philosophy that addressing sexual violence requires a community approach, bystander intervention programs emerged in the early 2000s (Banyard et al., 2004). Bystander intervention moves beyond the individual-level approach to addressing sexual violence, requiring members of the community to understand and address behaviors that may lead to sexual violence and to appropriately support survivors who disclose experiences with sexual violence. Combining community readiness models with bystander intervention strategies, bystander intervention programs showed promise for addressing sexual assault on college campuses (Banyard et al., 2004). Specifically, because most campuses pride themselves on being a “community” of scholars, researchers and educators believed that bystander intervention fit well on campuses because of the significance of community in bystander intervention strategies. The philosophy is that when people care about members of the community in which they are engaged, they are more likely to intervene in potentially harmful situations (Banyard et al., 2004). Unfortunately, bystander intervention programs have yet to demonstrate an impact on actual changes in behavior (Katz & Moore, 2013; McMahon, 2015). Similar to previous educational programs, making a direct connection between bystander intervention trainings and reductions of perpetration of sexual violence is difficult to make. Researchers measure the effectiveness of bystander intervention trainings by measuring participants’ understanding of sexual violence (knowing when to intervene), knowledge of bystander strategies (ways to intervene), bystander efficacy (confidence and willingness to intervene), and sometimes bystander behavior (actual interventions in the previous two months) (Banyard, Moynihan, & Crossman, 2009; McMahon, Postmus, Koenick, 2011; Moynihan & Banyard, 2008). As with most research on the effectiveness of educational programs and sexual violence intervention programs, participants self-report their willingness to intervene and their actual attempts at intervening. To date, no research indicates consistent, long-term effectiveness of bystander intervention training among college students (Katz & Moore, 2013; McMahon, 2015). Some scholars and researchers have begun to critique the premise on which bystander intervention was founded as it relates to college campuses. To start, because sexual violence is a complex and nuanced problem, it is difficult to teach students in a brief training session the dynamics of sexual violence and when and how to intervene. Given that most sexual violence situations on college campuses involve acquaintances and some consensual sexual activity (Black et al., 2011), it is difficult for bystanders to interpret what is consensual activity and what is not consensual; further, sexual violence frequently takes place in private settings when only the two parties are present, making it difficult for a bystander to intervene (Reid & Dundes, 2017). Similarly, given the power- and identity-neutral ways in which bystander intervention programs are enacted, students likely have a misunderstanding of who actual perpetrators of sexual violence are. Because strangers, men of color, and “creepy guys” are frequently portrayed as perpetrators of sexual violence, most students do not consider their friends or “good college boys” as potential perpetrators of sexual violence, and would, therefore, fail to intervene in many typical instances of sexual violence. Further, given the incongruence of typical bystander intervention programs with a heavy emphasis on heterosexual relationships and high rates of sexual violence among minoritized populations, including queer and trans* people, women of color, and students with disabilities, many instances of sexual violence are not even being included in bystander programs. Simply replacing heterosexual students with queer students in various scenarios is unlikely to help this challenge as the dynamics related to sexual violence among queer students are different than those among heterosexual students (Ollen et al., 2017). A power-conscious lens also highlights the challenges with placing responsibility on the community for ending sexual violence, rather than perpetrators. Engaging communities in addressing sexual violence is a very important strategy because the rape-supportive culture in which we live certainly contributes to a culture of sexual violence. Educating community members on our roles in perpetuating a rape culture certainly warrants increased attention and effort. However, placing responsibility on community members to intervene with perpetrators of sexual violence may increase the risk of harm to more people in the community (Bang, Kerrick, & Wuthrich, 2017) and remove some responsibility from perpetrators for ending sexual violence (Chief Elk & Devereaux, 2014). Overemphasizing the responsibility of the community in addressing sexual violence may result in taking responsibility away from perpetrators of sexual violence. Approaching sexual violence from a justice lens requires that community members and perpetrators become responsible for ending sexual violence (Hong, 2017). Finally, some of the most popular bystander intervention programs conflate high-risk alcohol use and sexual violence (see Haven), leading to confusing messages for students about their role intervening. I attended my campus’ bystander intervention training for students and left feeling confused about where the attention to sexual violence was. The training was primarily about intervening when students had too much to drink, which sometimes related to sexual violence and sometimes did not. Many students in my first-year experience course attended the bystander intervention training course as one of their required out-of-class experiences and through their reflections, noted the same concerns I did about the heavy emphasis on alcohol and minimal education related to sexual violence. Although the premise of bystander intervention programs makes sense, the enactment of the programs from a power- and identity-neutral lens results in them being less than effective as a strategy for addressing campus sexual violence. Addressing High-risk Alcohol Use as a Strategy for Preventing Sexual Violence Because high-risk alcohol use is heavily correlated with sexual violence, some educators have developed interventions focused on addressing high-risk alcohol use as a strategy for preventing sexual violence. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these programs focus on women as potential victims as their target audience. Research about the relationship between alcohol and sexual violence is confusing at best. Most research indicates that alcohol is “involved” in a high number of sexual assaults on college campuses (Lawyer, Resnick, Bakanic, Burkett, & Kilpatrick, 2010; Mohler-Kuo, Dowdall, Koss, & Wechsler, 2004). This “involvement” could be that the victim is too intoxicated to consent (Lawyer et al., 2010); the victim’s use of alcohol as a coping mechanism for dealing with previous sexual assault (Testa, Hoffman, & Livingston, 2010); the victim’s inhibitions are lowered, resulting in them making different decisions related to sexual activity than they would if they had not been drinking (Testa, VanZile-Tamsen, Livingston, & Buddie, 2006); the perpetrator uses alcohol as a weapon to target their victim (Gray et al., 2017); or the alcohol changes the perpetrator’s expectancies related to sexual contact, resulting in them being more sexually aggressive than they are without alcohol (Abbey & Jacques-Tiura, 2011; Gray et al., 2017). However, the scholarship is frequently interpreted as “if we teach college women to drink less, we will see a reduction in sexual violence.” In fact, this may or may not be true and the subliminal message sent to students about the role of alcohol in sexual violence is problematic and harmful. Teaching college women that if they do not drink, or drink responsibly, that they will not be targeted by perpetrators of sexual violence is dangerous because it perpetuates the notion that they have control over whether or not they are assaulted. Further, it contributes to a significant amount of self-blame for survivors of sexual violence. Many survivors indicate that they do not report their experiences with sexual violence to police or campus adjudication systems because they were drinking and they feel responsible for the assault (Fisher, Daigle, Cullen, & Turner, 2003; Wolitzy-Taylor et al., 2011; Zinzow & Thompson, 2011). Certainly, educators have a responsibility to teach students about the dangers associated with high-risk alcohol use; however, they can do this without conflating alcohol education with sexual violence education workshops that take place on campus. Both are significant and important issues with different root causes and must be handled accordingly. In addition to placing an undue responsibility on potential victims of sexual violence to prevent themselves from being assaulted, a heavy focus on alcohol takes responsibility away from perpetrators of sexual violence. Researchers indicate that when two college students are drinking prior to a sexual assault, students assign higher responsibility to the victim than to the perpetrator for the assault (Girard & Senn, 2008; Stormo, Lang, & Stritzke, 1997). For example, students say that the victim had a responsibility to reduce their risk of sexual violence by drinking less and the perpetrator was less responsible for their behavior because they did not know what they were doing because they were drunk (Untied, Orchowski, Mastroleo, & Gidycz, 2012). Educators have a responsibility to interrupt this problematic assumption about the role of alcohol in sexual violence, yet in the culture of one-size-fits-all, quick-fix responses to addressing sexual violence on college campuses, the focus on addressing alcohol as a factor in sexual violence frequently results in a strong emphasis on teaching victims to be cautious of how much they drink. Although it is certainly wise for all people to be mindful of their level of intoxication for all kinds of safety reasons, the gendered nature of this message in many sexual violence education programs perpetuates sexism and victims’ responsibility for ending sexual violence, rather than placing responsibility for ending sexual violence squarely on the shoulders of perpetrators where it belongs. Consent Programs Some educators have begun to educate students about consent as a strategy for addressing campus sexual violence. Although consent seems like a relatively straightforward concept, recent media coverage of sexual violence indicates that it may not be quite so straightforward (Way, 2018). As some states have moved toward affirmative consent requirements, meaning that campus policies focus on requiring students to receive a “yes,” rather than the absence of a no (Curtis & Burnett, 2017), education becomes more challenging. It is sometimes also difficult for students to understand the concept of on-going consent, the idea that consent must be obtained for every sexual act in which they engage with another person. In environments in which discussing sex at all can be off-limits for many students because of their religious or personal upbringing or socialization related to sexual activity, discussing consent can be challenging in both educational and social settings. Unfortunately, no research yet exists examining the effectiveness of these programs, but some research about college students’ understanding of consent can inform educators’ strategies and approaches to addressing sexual violence. Emerging research examining college students’ understanding of consent indicates that students’ understanding of consent is highly gendered and rooted in a heterosexual paradigm. Students describe gendered sexual scripts in their negotiation of consent, meaning that they view men’s roles to initiate sex and women’s role to accept or reject the initiation, but not to initiate sex (Jozkowski & Peterson, 2013). Additionally, men and women use different strategies for giving and understanding consent; specifically, women rely on nonverbal strategies (like nodding) to give consent while men rely on verbal strategies to give consent (like saying “yes”; Jozkowski & Peterson, 2013). To add confusion, men rely on verbal strategies to receive consent, which is opposite of the way women tend to give consent (Jozkowski, Peterson, Sanders, Dennis, & Reece, 2014). Finally, some men report using deception to receive consent for sexual activity (Jozkowski & Peterson, 2013), which in some states would legally be considered sexual assault. In the next section, I examine the significance of better understanding patterns of perpetration among college perpetrators. PATTERNS OF PERPETRATION Unfortunately, the majority of educational programs, which constitute most prevention programs on college campuses, focus on victims and bystanders, rather than perpetrators. Given that primary prevention rests on stopping perpetration before it starts, it is important for administrators and educators to consider strategies for directly addressing perpetrators and potential perpetrators of sexual violence. Most research on campus perpetration focuses on men who assault women, providing little information on other kinds of sexual violence perpetrators. Between 12% and 14.2% of college men report engaging in at least one act of sexual violence in the previous year (Gray et al., 2017), with some studies documenting up to 23% of men engaging in coercive sexual behavior (Zinzow & Thompson, 2015). Further, over 60% of perpetrators report engaging in multiple acts of sexual violence (Gray et al., 2017; Zinzow & Thompson, 2015). Fortunately, researchers have collected enough data to be able to identify some factors associated with sexual violence, including individual characteristics and sociocultural environmental factors (Gray et al., 2017). Researchers suggest that the high rates of sexual violence on college campuses are perpetrated by two types of perpetrators: repeat offenders who begin their predatory patterns in adolescence and develop them over time and one-time opportunistic perpetrators who are attempting to “conform to masculine expectations” exacerbated by alcohol (Gray et al., 2017, p. 50). Although alcohol is associated with sexual violence in literature about perpetrator and victim risk factors, a more nuanced review of the literature suggests that alcohol likely exacerbates the individual and sociocultural factors already at play on college campuses contributing to high rates of sexual violence. For example, men who already possess the individual traits that make them at risk for perpetrating sexual violence are more likely to do so after drinking because the alcohol contributes to a decrease in inhibitions and beliefs that their behavior will result in negative consequences (Abbey, 2011; Gray et al, 2017; Zinzow & Thompson, 2015). Individual-level factors associated with perpetration include developmental risk factors and pathological personality traits. Specifically, men who experienced physical and/or sexual abuse in childhood, witnessed domestic violence, and have poor parental attachment (learning that expression of their emotions will not result in comfort from their parents) are at higher risk for committing sexual violence. Similarly, “men who have failed to develop empathy for others,” and who hold hostile and antisocial views toward others makes them “predisposed toward violence and aggression” (Gray et al., 2017, p. 37). Psychopathy and narcissism are also associated with higher risk of perpetration of sexual violence and include traits like “shallow and callous affect, egocentricity, lack of remorse and empathy for others and a tendency to manipulate others” (Gray et al., 2017, p. 37). Narcissism includes similar personality traits, including a strong emphasis on lack of empathy for others. Overall, these traits contribute to a higher likelihood of perpetration because they “facilitate hostility toward women and anger when their perceived entitlement to sex is threatened” (Gray et al., 2017, p. 37). Similarly, sociocultural factors that increase the likelihood of perpetration include hostility toward women and rape myth acceptance. Peer norms in campus environments contribute significantly to these sociocultural factors, which are not independent from the individual-level factors. Men affiliated with all-male groups like fraternities and athletic teams tend to have a higher propensity for rape (Murnen & Kohlman, 2007). Certainly, all-male groups may have strong patriarchal values (either intentionally or unintentionally) that contribute to a culture of hostility toward women and rape myth acceptance, yet it could also be that men with these personality traits are attracted to all-male groups. Perpetration patterns differ and are connected with one-time vs repeat offenders. Generally, repeat offenders possess more individual-level factors, including traits associated with psychopathy and narcissism. Additionally, one-time offenders and repeat offenders differ on the level of remorse and guilt they express. Repeat offenders express less remorse and guilt than one-time offenders, who have expressed that they learned something from being called out on their behavior (Abbey & McAuslan, 2004; Abbey, Wegner, Pierce, & Jacques-Tiura, 2012). Clearly, different patterns of perpetration call for different kinds of intervention. If repeat offenders express less remorse and display more individual-level traits associated with psychopathy and narcissism, interventions for them must begin long before college and focus on developing empathy and appropriate attachment in interpersonal relationships. Similarly, if one-time offenders express remorse and that they can learn from their bad behavior, it stands to reason that some interventions could address potential perpetrators by intervening in high-risk, hyper-masculine groups to educate men about sexual violence. Specifically, these interventions should approach these men as potential perpetrators, rather than innocent bystanders, by educating them about what constitutes sexual violence and how their socialization into stereotypical gender roles (i.e., hyper-masculinity) may lead them to interpret women’s resistance to their sexual advances as playful or something to be overcome, rather than actual nonconsent to sexual activity (Abbey & Jacques-Tiura, 2011; Loh, Gidycz, Lobo, & Luthra, 2005). Finally, addressing perpetrators or potential perpetrators requires significant attention to nuance and complexity. Given that perpetrators of sexual violence engage in a variety of strategies and tactics to sexually assault people, intervening with them requires a number of strategies. Unfortunately, given the complex ways gender socialization and power work in most Western cultures, some perpetrators of sexual violence may not even know what they are doing is harming another person. Perpetrators of sexual violence unquestionably use sex as a tool to exert their power over other people, yet some perpetrators are unaware that their behaviors are rooted in power and entitlement – they have been socialized to believe that they have the right to control other people through physical, emotional, and mental coercion. Clearly, intervening with people who have been socialized to unconsciously exert their power over others through coercion requires deep, complex interventions implemented over time and in a variety of settings. CONCLUSION Educating students about sexual violence is complex and requires time and creativity. Unfortunately, the vast majority of educational programs implemented and evaluated on college campuses over the past three decades show little change in terms of prevalence of sexual violence (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2004). Although the programs may show changes in students’ rape myth acceptance or attitudes toward rape (Anderson & Whiston, 2005), those changes may or may not result in an actual change in behavior. Certainly, one of the greatest challenges educators and administrators manage in the area of sexual violence education is evaluation of the programs. It is nearly impossible to connect one-time educational programs with changes in behavior, especially sexually violent behavior. Further, given the resources educators and administrators have, evaluation of the programs falls to the bottom of the priority list. Finally, even though some campus educators and administrators may do evaluation of their own programs, it may not be published in academic journals, limiting its dissemination to other campuses. Although educating the entire campus community about sexual violence is an important piece of preventing sexual violence, primary prevention programs – those aimed at stopping perpetration before it starts – warrant increased attention on college and university campuses (CDC, 2004). Potentially the most crucial aspect of a comprehensive sexual violence program on college campuses, prevention typically gets the fewest resources and is frequently conflated with response to sexual violence. To eradicate sexual violence on college campuses, educators and administrators must intervene with perpetrators and potential perpetrators to stop sexual violence before it happens. As uncomfortable and challenging as it might be to identify potential perpetrators, knowledge and information are available. Administrators and educators rarely avoid profiling people who are at high risk for being victimized for educational purposes, and must not shy away from identifying people who are at high risk for perpetrating sexual violence either. Although administrators and educators have been working to educate college students about sexual violence for decades, the prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses has not budged (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2004). MLA (Modern Language Assoc.) Linder, Chris. Sexual Violence on Campus : Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response. Vol. First edition, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018. APA (American Psychological Assoc.) Linder, C. (2018). Sexual Violence on Campus : Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response: Vol. First edition. Emerald Publishing Limited.

CHAPTER 5 STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVELY ADDRESSING SEXUAL VIOLENCE THROUGH A POWER-CONSCIOUS LENS Throughout this book, I have examined history and current practices related to addressing sexual violence on college campuses. Using a power-conscious framework, I critiqued current practices and challenged educators and administrators to consider the historical foundations of sexual violence and awareness, response, and prevention of sexual violence. In this chapter, I provide some ideas to consider as we move forward in addressing sexual violence on college and university campuses. Some of these ideas, or an iteration of them, may already be taking place in some spaces. Unfortunately, critical, innovative work is sometimes buried in the deep corners of college and university campuses because it does not align with a well-known “best practice” and is often being done by people working quietly in the margins of our institutions. Many times, these radical educators are intentionally trying not to be discovered for fear of being reprimanded, asked to stop doing what they’re doing, or co-opted by mainstream sexual violence organizations. My hope is that by putting forth ideas in a published manner, they may become seen as “best practices” and some educators will feel supported in voicing what they have known to be true for a very long time. Maybe with this support, more critically minded people can do the work that is so crucial for effectively addressing sexual violence through a power-conscious lens, rather than being shut down through cautionary, compliance-focused responses to sexual violence. In this chapter, I revisit the power-conscious framework and the awareness-response-prevention trifecta outlined in Chapter 1 for more effectively addressing sexual violence. Specifically, I highlight strategies for educators and administrators who want to be more mindful in addressing power in their practices related to campus sexual violence. Finally, I end the chapter with a call for administrators and educators to address sexual violence as a problem of equity rooted in oppression, rather than as a health problem or epidemic. A CAUTION ON “INCLUSIVE” PRACTICES Although many people advocate for the development of “inclusive” programs on college and university campuses, I caution against using this language. Not all programs or policies can be applicable to all people because power influences the ways in which people experience the same situation differently. Striving for “inclusive” programs or policies runs dangerously close to engaging in colorblind ideologies. Attempting to create “inclusive” programs or policies stems from an assumption that one approach can work for everyone. Rather than aim toward inclusive policies or programs, I advocate that we work toward equitable policies and programs. Equitable programs require people to consider the ways different people may experience a situation differently based on their identities and relationship to power and to explicitly address those differences in their work. Inclusive implies that something should be for everyone, regardless of their experiences; equitable means that programs and policies consider the ways in which power influences people’s experiences differently. Inclusion is often power-neutral rather than power-conscious. For example, an “inclusive” approach to sexual violence education requires that educators use gender-neutral or vague language to refer to perpetrators and victims. The point of this is to ensure that it is clear that “anyone can be a perpetrator and anyone can be a victim.” However, an equitable program would be one in which educators name that perpetrators are men 98% of the time (Black et al., 2011). Failing to name the reality that perpetration of sexual violence is directly related to patriarchy and white supremacy contributes to making perpetrators invisible, resulting in educational programs where responsibility is placed on potential victims to end sexual violence. Given that the master narrative about sexual violence is one of a woman assaulted by a man, failing to name and interrogate this narrative only contributes to perpetuating it. Power-neutral approaches result in reifying dominant narratives. Power-conscious approaches interrupt dominant narratives, providing nuance to the ways that people understand sexual violence. POWER-CONSCIOUS FRAMEWORK Power-consciousness requires educators to adopt a complex, nuanced approach to addressing students’ needs. It necessitates that educators listen to and consider the ways in which students’ experiences and needs are different from each other in a variety of ways. As highlighted in Chapter 1, the power-conscious framework guiding this text rests on three assumptions: (1) power is omnipresent; (2) power and identity are inextricably connected; and (3) identity is socially constructed and its meaning changes over time. The six action-oriented tenets of the power-conscious framework include: (1) engage in critical consciousness and self-awareness; (2) consider history and context when examining issues of oppression; (3) change behaviors based on reflection and awareness; (4) name and call attention to dominant-group members’ investment in, and benefit from, systems of domination and divest from privilege; (5) name and interrogate the role of power in individual interactions, policy development, and implementation of practice; and (6) work in solidarity to address oppression. A power-conscious framework supports educators and administrators in thinking about ways to develop more equitable and effective approaches to addressing sexual violence. Similarly, awareness, response, and prevention are all important components of addressing sexual violence on college campuses. As highlighted throughout the text, these three components often get conflated as “prevention” in sexual violence work on college campuses. In this text, I attempted to highlight the differences between awareness, response, and prevention and describe the significance of each component. Additionally, recognizing that there is important overlap between the three components, I also examine the importance of considering strategies that contribute to a combination of two of the components or all three components. For example, developing and making people aware of culturally competent resources for survivors of sexual violence may fit in the area of overlap between the awareness and response categories. The development of culturally competent resources is an example of response and making people aware of the resources is an example of awareness. Similarly, holding repeat offenders responsible for sexual violence and removing them from the environment in which they are perpetrating sexual violence is an example of the overlap between response and prevention. Although holding perpetrators accountable is not a form of primary prevention (i.e., stopping violence before it happens), it is an example of tertiary prevention (i.e., stopping violence from happening again; CDC, 2004). Therefore, holding perpetrators accountable is both a form of response and prevention. Recognizing the synergy between awareness, response, and prevention is important in moving forward to address campus sexual violence. Although I separate awareness, response, and prevention into three distinct chapters, I do not mean to imply that they cannot exist together. In fact, although different administrators and educators on campuses may be responsible for different aspects of addressing sexual violence, these efforts should be coordinated, and educators and administrators must work together to ensure that the efforts complement each other, rather than detract from or contradict each other. For example, while primary prevention (i.e., working with perpetrators and potential perpetrators) should not take place in the same space as services for survivors of sexual violence, it is important for the people coordinating primary prevention programs and services for survivors communicate with each other to ensure that both groups are aware of the trends and issues that they are both seeing. Communication with each other allows educators to stay on top of the most recent developments, resulting in more effective prevention and response. Similar to the ways in which I divided the book into three chapters focusing on awareness, response, and prevention even though the three areas have overlap, I do the same in making recommendations for developing power-conscious approaches to addressing sexual violence. AWARENESS As outlined in the chapter on awareness of sexual violence, an important component of addressing sexual violence on college campuses is to help people understand the significance and complexity of the problem of sexual violence. Additionally, making people aware of resources available for education about and response to sexual violence, including policy, is an important component of awareness. One of the challenges discussed in Chapter 2 included making students aware of the complexity of sexual violence. Many students are aware of the scope of the problem of sexual violence. Thanks to media (including campus newspapers), student activists, social media, and even personal experiences, many students know that sexual violence affects an alarming number of their peers (McMahon & Stepleton, 2018). However, students also tend to have a misconception of how sexual violence happens and who typical victims of sexual violence are. For example, when asked to describe their strategies for safety on campus, many students describe tactics consistent with protecting themselves from stranger assault like never walking alone at night, carrying weapons, and talking on their phones as they walk around campus at night (Linder & Lacy, 2017). Similarly, because sexual violence covers a wide variety of behaviors, students may also be confused about what constitutes sexual violence. To add further confusion, language used in research, legal processes, and education are inconsistent. For example, researchers use the words unwanted sexual touching, sexual coercion, incapacitated rape, forcible rape, and sexual assault. Campus adjudication programs often use the terms sexual misconduct and nonconsensual sex. Further, educators typically talk about sexual assault or sexual violence more broadly. Finally, some states and campuses have begun to introduce legislation and policy requiring affirmative consent, which requires a “yes,” or other affirmative response, rather than an absence of a “no” for consent to sex (Morse et al., 2015). Given that each of these terms mean different things in different contexts, educating students about the nuances and dynamics of sexual violence becomes incredibly challenging. Further, given that many media outlets and scholarship portray sexual violence victims as white, cisgender, heterosexual women, students also likely have a misperception of who potential victims of sexual violence are. Misperceptions about victims of sexual violence result in students failing to intervene in potential bystander situations (examined in the “prevention” section of this chapter), and some survivors not considering their experiences legitimate, resulting in them not reporting the crime or seeking support in the aftermath of sexual violence (Zinzow & Thompson, 2011). To address these challenges, campus educators and administrators may consider several strategies for creating more power-conscious awareness-raising tools. Invest Time and Resources Educators and administrators must be prepared to invest the time and resources necessary to educate students about sexual violence and consider a number of factors on their campuses. For example, campus leaders frequently require students to participate in a session at orientation that covers several “problems” on campus: sexual assault, alcohol, and diversity. This is highly problematic for many reasons, including the conflation of alcohol and sexual assault, which presents an inaccurate picture of sexual assault being about alcohol rather than about power. Further, adding “diversity” to a session with alcohol and sexual violence presents “diversity” as a problem to be dealt with, rather than an asset. These one-time programs often result in little to no information being retained (Newlands & O’Donohue, 2016) because students are so overwhelmed with the amount of information they receive at orientation. Some campuses have moved from a one-time program at orientation to requiring students to complete an online training about alcohol and/or sexual violence prior to enrolling in classes (Newlands & O’Donohue, 2016). Online training modules are time-efficient and meet the federal requirement for campuses to educate students about sexual violence. Unfortunately, students frequently do not retain this information either. Students report clicking through the training while they are engaged in a number of other activities, not paying attention to the actual training (Smith, 2015). To more effectively educate students about sexual violence, administrators must create the time and opportunity for students to engage in on-going educational programming focused on the nuance and complexity of sexual violence, focusing specifically on various identity and affinity groups (Anderson & Whiston, 2005; Vladutiu et al., 2010). Develop Identity-specific Educational Workshops Students benefit from identity-specific training related to sexual violence (Anderson & Whiston, 2005; Vladutiu et al., 2010). For example, students associated with the LGBT Resource Center on their campuses may benefit from a workshop that specifically focuses on dynamics of sexual violence in LGBT communities. Similarly, students of color, who are frequently ignored in mainstream sexual violence education, may benefit from educational programs organized through multicultural student organizations or cultural centers on campus. Providing opportunities for students to engage with people who share similar experiences to them would allow for more in-depth opportunities to ask questions, engage, and better understand issues of sexual violence. However, administrators cannot expect the already overworked staff in these offices to do this work without additional resources. Sexual violence prevention and education must be funded and supported through professional development in order to be effective. Provide Accurate Information about the History, Dynamics, and Definitions of Sexual Violence Although many college students arrive on campus fully prepared to ward off strangers and crime, it would behoove educators and administrators to take a “yes, and …” approach to addressing students’ concerns around crime. While it is certainly important for students to remain mindful of reducing their risk of victimization from various crimes that may be committed by strangers, including physical assault, robbery and burglary, and muggings, they should also be made aware of the actual dynamics of campus sexual violence. If students were more aware that sexual violence is most likely to be committed by someone known to the victim, rather than a stranger, they may learn to take additional precautions when around people who they have been socialized to uncritically trust. Further, teaching students about the characteristics and patterns of perpetration may contribute to an increased awareness of potential signs of more common instances of sexual violence, which may also contribute to risk reduction. Given the complexities of definitions of sexual violence and consent, educators and administrators may also consider educational workshops focused on teaching students the various kinds of sexual violence that may occur on and around campus, rather than assuming students know and understand the various kinds of sexual violence. Further, by defining consent and providing examples of what consent is and is not, students may have a better understanding of what constitutes sexual violence and consider changing their behavior accordingly. Similarly, because sexual violence is frequently portrayed as an issue connected to high-risk alcohol use, helping students understand the power dynamics present in sexual violence may contribute to a more accurate understanding of sexual violence, which may reduce people’s likelihood of perpetration and risk for victimization. Specifically, teaching people – faculty, staff, and students – the history of sexual violence as a tool of colonization, terrorization, and economic exploitation may result in them having a deeper understanding of the relationship between power and sexual violence. This deeper understanding may be both empowering for survivors and contribute to a reduction in risk for potential victims. One of the challenges associated with educating students accurately about sexual violence is the fear of the public relations ramifications of discussing consent in climates where students (and in some cases their parents) are not comfortable discussing sexual activity or admitting that college students, in fact, engage in sexual activity. Further, by discussing sexual violence as early as orientation to college, some administrators express concern that they risk portraying their campuses as unsafe. To address this challenge, educators and administrators could present statistics about campuses nationally, acknowledging that sexual violence is a problem on every campus and that they are proactively working to address the problem, rather than waiting until after it happens. In fact, if a campus has high reported rates of sexual violence, that is actually a positive attribute because it means that students on that campus feel comfortable reporting sexual violence to police and campus authorities. Given that sexual violence is an underreported crime, campus administrators could use high rates of reported sexual violence to frame their campus as progressively addressing the problem that plagues every campus. RESPONSE As discussed in Chapter 3, college and university administrators experience a considerable amount of pressure to spend resources responding to sexual violence after it happens, rather than preventing it from happening in the first place. Specifically, most policy focusing on campus sexual violence requires campuses develop effective and fair processes for adjudicating reports of sexual assault and for providing services to survivors of sexual violence in the aftermath of sexual violence (Tani, 2017). Unfortunately, thanks to overly complicated legislation, state and federal guidance, and confusion created by on-going lawsuits related to sexual violence on campus, many campus reporting systems are confusing to students (Allen, Ridgeway, & Swan, 2015; McMahon & Stepleton, 2018) and most also fail to consider the role of power and identity in the adjudication process. Given a long history of racism, homophobia, and additional forms of oppression present in criminal justice systems, many survivors do not feel comfortable accessing campus adjudication processes or reporting through criminal justice systems. Another challenge presented in Chapter 3 highlights the reality that services for survivors of sexual violence frequently focus on cisgender, heterosexual, nondisabled, mostly white women, resulting in many survivors of sexual violence not having access to resources to heal in the aftermath of sexual violence. Although many staff in sexual assault advocacy centers and counseling centers are aware of this limitation, resources and staff to work though this challenge are limited. Finally, virtually no campuses (at least not in the published literature) provide services for perpetrators of sexual violence. Given that many perpetrators commit more than one act of sexual violence, intervention programs to educate and transform the behavior of perpetrators require increased attention. Responding effectively and equitably to campus sexual violence is a significant piece of the puzzle when it comes to comprehensively addressing sexual violence and several strategies warrant attention from administrators and educators. Examine Policies and Procedures for Power-related Concerns Developing power-conscious responses to sexual violence requires college and university administrators to consider the role of power in their policies and practices. Although most people consider policy to be neutral and fair, this is usually far from the truth. Even in the ways in which policies are written, some students’ experiences and identities are made invisible (Iverson, 2017). For example, if a university sexual violence policy consistently refers to perpetrators using masculine pronouns and victims with feminine pronouns, they imply that women are victims and men are perpetrators, contributing to a culture in which men and gender nonbinary people may not see themselves in the policy and therefore may not consider their experience as legitimate sexual violence. Further, the enactment of these policies may also contribute to making some victims’ experiences invisible. When investigators, hearing officers, and campus judicial boards are not trained to understand the power dynamics in sexual violence and when they do not have training explicitly focused on interrupting myths about sexual violence and who victims and perpetrators of sexual violence may be, they may not appropriately respond to survivors and perpetrators. For example, if a student on a judicial board has been socialized to understand sexual violence as a crime committed by a man of color or a stranger through the media and other socializing agents, they may not consider nonconsensual sex between two people who know each other – especially if the perpetrator presents as a “nice, college man” who reminds the student on the judicial board of themselves – as a legitimate form of sexual violence. Examining policies and training practices for attention to power as it relates to sexual violence will provide educators and administrators insight on where and how they may develop more equitable policies and practices. Consider Community Accountability and Restorative Justice Approaches to Adjudication Although mediation is not an appropriate strategy for addressing sexual violence because mediation assumes an equal power dynamic between involved parties, other community accountability strategies may be appropriate for some survivors of sexual violence (Koss, Wilgus, & Williamsen, 2014), especially those in historically minoritized communities (INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, 2006; Patterson, 2016). Community accountability refers to processes in which the entire community is involved in holding a perpetrator accountable for their behavior. For example, several family members and friends of a perpetrator work with them to educate them about their behavior and develop specific interventions for teaching them to stop. They then remain engaged with them to ensure that they continue working through their issues with power and control. Clearly, pathological perpetrators may not be a good fit for community accountability, but as outlined in Chapter 4, many perpetrators are one-time offenders who demonstrate capacity for learning from and changing their behaviors. Examples of community accountability exist in queer communities and in some communities of color (INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, 2006; Patterson, 2016), primarily as a result of these communities not having the luxury of ousting a member of the community and because formal justice systems typically do not work in favor of minoritized communities. College and university campuses may be another community in which community accountability processes may be effective, especially in historically minoritized communities. Restorative justice is a practice in which people who cause harm to another member of their community engage in a deeper understanding of the harm they caused and work to repair the harm (Koss et al., 2014). Although most sexual violence advocates have resisted restorative justice as a potential strategy for adjudicating sexual violence because of the imbalance of power in sexual violence situations, some advocates have started to advocate for its potential use on college campuses. Many advocates have resisted restorative justice on behalf of survivors, sometimes without actually listening to the concerns and desires of survivors, which is incredibly disempowering and paternalistic. Some survivors do not report their experiences of sexual violence to reporting agencies because they do not want the perpetrator to “get in trouble,” but they do want the perpetrator to stop their behavior. In these cases, and if the perpetrator is not a pathological offender, restorative justice may be appropriate. Develop Power-conscious Support Services for Survivors Many advocacy and counseling center staff members are acutely aware of the ways that the lack of diversity in their programs influence survivors’ responses to their services. When counseling and advocacy offices do not have staff who represent the wide variety of experiences of survivors on campuses, they likely do not serve many survivors on campus. For example, if a woman of color visits the sexual assault advocacy office webpage and sees that every staff member in the office identifies as a white woman, she may feel as though the advocates will not understand her unique experiences with sexual violence (Tillman, Bryant-Davis, Smith, & Marks, 2010). Similarly, if a sexual violence response center includes the word “woman” somewhere in the title, male survivors may not feel comfortable accessing services in that office (Allen et al., 2015). Given that people with minoritized identities experience higher rates of sexual violence than their dominant-group peers and are less likely to report their experiences of sexual violence, having support services appropriate to their experiences is vital. Although a person does not have to identify with a particular population in order to serve or understand their experience, having a diverse staff in advocacy and counseling centers will ensure that more students’ experiences are represented and signal that the organization or office is committed to understanding a variety of experiences, rather than focusing on the “typical” victim of sexual violence. Further, given that students with minoritized identities frequently develop relationships with staff in identity-based offices like multicultural centers, disability resource centers, and LGBT resource centers, it is crucial that the staff in those programs and offices understand the dynamics of sexual violence and the resources on campus for survivors. Developing more power-conscious services for survivors of sexual violence may also require a different interpretation of mandatory reporting on college and university campuses. Although mandatory reporting was designed with the intention of protecting students from repeat offenders of sexual violence, the impact has been that many faculty and staff are afraid to talk with students about personal issues because they are afraid to get involved in students’ personal lives or because they do not want to force a student to participate in a campus adjudication process if they do not want to. Given that students with minoritized identities are likely to discuss their concerns with staff in identity-based offices because of the trust established, it could be that staff in these offices have a provisional confidential protection from mandatory reporting, which may result in more students receiving support for healing in the aftermath of sexual violence. Develop Programs to Intervene with Perpetrators of Sexual Violence Although when most people think of responding to sexual violence, they think of developing appropriate services to support survivors in the aftermath of sexual violence, or fair and equitable adjudication processes to hold perpetrators accountable, another important aspect of responding to sexual violence is to develop perpetrator intervention programs. Perpetrators of sexual violence are frequently repeat offenders (Abbey et al., 2007), meaning that intervening and addressing their behavior warrants increased attention from college and university campuses. Although many survivors and survivor advocates push for the expulsion of sexual violence perpetrators to protect victims and future victims from the perpetrator’s behavior, expelling a perpetrator from campus may result in the perpetrator going to a different community and continuing to perpetrate sexual violence. Given that college and university campuses have resources to develop innovative programs and educate members of their community, they are uniquely positioned to facilitate perpetrator interventions to prevent repeat offending and to offer a model for use in larger communities. Although further research is necessary to fully understand the characteristics and patterns of perpetrators of sexual violence, enough research exists to begin to develop intervention and education programs directed at changing perpetrators’ behavior. PREVENTION Sexual violence prevention requires educators and administrators do some work to address sexual violence before it happens. As outlined in Chapter 4, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) advocates that educators consider a four-level public health model focusing on individual and community responses to preventing sexual violence. Additionally, the CDC highlights three types of prevention: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary prevention focuses on intervening before violence starts to ensure that it never happens; secondary prevention focuses on quickly and effectively intervening immediately after violence to protect the victim from further harm; and tertiary prevention focuses on the long-term response to sexual violence, attempting to prevent further violence and harm to the community (CDC, 2004). Unfortunately, as highlighted in Chapters 3 and 4, policy and public pressure require campus administrators and educators to focus on secondary and tertiary prevention of sexual violence. In this section, I advocate for several strategies to push campus administrators and educators to focus on primary prevention of sexual violence. Specifically, identifying and intervening with perpetrators and people at high-risk for committing sexual violence may contribute to reduced rates of sexual violence on college campuses. To do this, educators and administrators must take bold, innovative steps that may make some people uncomfortable. As illustrated throughout history, when the culture shifts and people who have historically enjoyed unlimited access to power and comfort are held accountable for their actions, a backlash often ensues. For example, in the US right now, an unprecedented number of men in Hollywood and other media-related positions have been accused of sexual harassment and assault, with enough evidence for them to be fired from their jobs. More and more people are speaking out against powerful men, telling their stories of harassment and assault. As a response to this shift in culture, some people believe it has gone “too far” and that men can’t interact with women at all anymore without accusations of assault (Hamblin, 2018). When powerful people’s comfort is challenged, a backlash ensues. To effectively address sexual violence on college campuses, administrators must be prepared to handle a backlash from people who are used to enjoying comfort and power as a result of their social identities. Effectively intervening with perpetrators and potential perpetrators requires a focus on people with access to power – both formal and informal – which is difficult work. Although I unapologetically advocate for addressing sexual violence by specifically addressing perpetrators and potential perpetrators of sexual violence, I also understand the significance of teaching victims and potential victims’ strategies for reducing their risk of sexual violence. However, the strategies currently employed on most college and university campuses related to risk reduction have not worked to reduce the prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses, requiring us to shift our strategies for prevention. Separate Prevention and Response Offices As the attention to sexual violence on college campuses has increased, so do have the resources dedicated to addressing sexual violence. Unfortunately, prevention and response of sexual violence are frequently conflated and prevention and response strategies are lumped together into one program or office. When prevention and response are housed in the same location and expected to share staff and resources, the crisis of responding to survivors of sexual violence will take precedent over engaging in prevention work. In the aftermath of a sexual assault, services and support for the survivor, including counseling, medical, legal, and advocacy, should be the focus of a well-funded, comprehensive sexual violence response center or program. Without a doubt, college and universities have a responsibility to provide culturally competent, thorough, and accurate support to survivors of sexual violence. Additionally, colleges and universities have a responsibility to more effectively engage in prevention strategies to stop sexual violence from happening before it starts. To more effectively engage in prevention activities, campus administrators may consider separating these functions into two separate offices or programs. Given that staff in sexual violence response and advocacy offices report being overwhelmed with more cases than they can handle and getting more and more complex cases requiring a significant amount of time (Ullman & Townsend, 2007), they cannot also be tasked with providing thoughtful, innovative primary prevention programming for sexual violence. Additionally, the training and skills required for supporting survivors are different from training and skills required to intervene with perpetrators and potential perpetrators. Although the foundation is the same, the intervention of response and prevention are different. Further, given that most staff in sexual violence response centers identify as women (a challenge addressed in a previous section) and 98% of perpetrators of sexual violence identify as men, it may also be beneficial to consider how identity influences the messaging related to sexual violence prevention. Although I do not advocate that prevention work should be done exclusively by men, I do believe that men with a strong background in prevention education play a unique role in educating other men about consensual sexual behavior. A recent online account of one man’s reflection on his sexual interactions with women and understanding of how he likely pressured women to engage in sexual behavior without understanding the implications of his behavior illustrates the significance of men educating other men about power, consent, and coercion (Anonymous, 2018). Further, given the high likelihood that people providing support services to survivors of sexual violence are experiencing their own vicarious or secondary trauma, asking them to then work with perpetrators of sexual violence may only trigger or exacerbate the trauma they have themselves experienced. Secondary and vicarious trauma describe the ways that people in support roles begin to take on or internalize other people’s trauma if not given the appropriate supervision and support for working through the cases they hear (McCann & Pearlman, 1990; Schauben & Frazier, 1995). Vicarious and secondary trauma affect many people in helping professions, including counselors, doctors, and advocates. Rather than adding additional work to the already full agendas of sexual violence advocates, college and university administrators should support advocates in doing their own healing work related to the trauma they experience from their jobs and hiring additional people to engage in prevention programs with perpetrators and potential perpetrators of sexual violence. Implement Perpetrator and Pre-perpetration Programs Although educating students to consider the ways they can reduce their risk of sexual violence is important and should be continued and improved, programs focused specifically on perpetrators and those at high-risk of perpetrating sexual violence should also be embraced. The current legal climate makes it challenging for college and university administrators to consider knowingly keeping perpetrators on their campuses. No campus administrator wants to be responsible for having a person known to cause harm continue to cause harm. As seen in the cases of Jerry Sandusky at Penn State and Larry Nassar at Michigan State, in some cases, perpetrators of sexual violence should immediately be removed from the community. However, as illustrated in Chapter 4, research indicates that some perpetrators may benefit from educational interventions and can learn and understand how to change their behaviors. For this reason, colleges and universities may consider developing perpetrator intervention programs. When colleges and universities dismiss perpetrators of sexual violence, many of them will go on to other communities (even if not another campus community) and continue engaging in sexual violence. Given that most college and university mission statements include a focus contributing to the betterment of society through innovative, research-oriented practices, developing perpetrator intervention programs may fit into this mission. Similarly, given that some survivors – especially those who are members of minoritized communities – are uninterested in participating in formal criminal justice processes, perpetrator intervention programs may be a more power-conscious approach to addressing sexual violence in minoritized communities. I frequently advocate for the development of programs designed to intervene with perpetrators and potential perpetrators and am regularly asked how I would identify those people if they are not “convicted” or “proven” guilty. Although the current legal climate focuses heavily on identifying perpetrators as either “bad” or “good,” or “guilty” or “not guilty,” perpetration intervention programs may require more gray areas than this. If people are engaging in behavior that makes someone uncomfortable enough to report it to a campus authority, it is likely that that person could benefit from some education around consent, power, and sex, even if they are not found “responsible” for sexual violence. Further, research provides plenty of information about the characteristics that make someone at risk for perpetrating sexual violence. Rather than focusing on potential perpetrators as bad people who should be ousted from a community, educators could identify people at high-risk for perpetrating sexual violence through their involvement in all-male groups (Murnen & Kohlman, 2007), exposure to rape-supportive messages (Edwards & Vogel, 2015) and engagement in other high-risk, impulsive behavior (Mouilso et al., 2013; Mouliso & Calhoun, 2013), and approach sexual violence as part of an overall curriculum designed to engage them as responsible, productive members of a community. Although some educators advocate for approaching all-male groups as potential allies and bystanders, rather than using the “bad dog” approach (Laker & Davis, 2011, p. 64), I advocate for something in the middle. Treating people who are at high-risk of perpetrating sexual violence based on individual characteristics or environmental influences as potential allies is dangerous. Failing to challenge perpetrators’ and potential perpetrators’ assumptions and beliefs about power and approaching all-male groups as if there are no perpetrators in the space is dangerous. It perpetuates the notion that “we’re all good guys here,” which then does not give permission for people to intervene when they do see something that may be considered harmful. Further, failing to acknowledge and educate people that perpetrators are present all over campus perpetuates myths about who perpetrators are and who they are not, contributing to higher risk of sexual violence because students are socialized to be fearful of the wrong people – namely strangers and men of color, rather than the “good college boy” (who may be a man of color) sitting next to them in their biology class. Therefore, I advocate that we approach groups of students by naming that there are perpetrators in the space, just as we name that there are survivors in the space, as a way for them to think differently about their peer groups and cause some perpetrators to think twice about their behaviors. By explaining sexual assault and consent clearly and with nuance, some perpetrators and potential perpetrators may begin to question the behaviors and consider getting help for changing their behaviors (Anonymous, 2018). This leads to my final recommendation related to engaging perpetrators and potential perpetrators. Just as campuses provide support services for survivors of sexual violence, campus administrators may consider supporting the development of services for perpetrators and those who engage in high-risk behaviors related to sexual violence. It is highly likely that people engaged in supporting and mentoring men on campus have heard of behaviors that raise red flags for them or that likely meet the legal definitions of sexual violence, but they do not have places to refer these students for assistance in unlearning this behavior for fear of “getting in trouble.” Because sexual violence is rooted in power and dominance, many perpetrators of sexual violence are unclear that their behavior is causing harm to anyone else. In many cases, men are developing and demonstrating their worth through exerting power over others as they have been socialized to do. As many men will explain when they are given the opportunity to, jockeying for power this way is exhausting and only benefits some men. Counselors and critically conscious staff who advise men’s groups may be in a unique position to identify and refer men to programs specifically designed to help them understand and more effectively navigate the role of power in their lives. Develop Power-conscious Bystander Intervention Programs Educators and administrators have heralded bystander intervention programs as a “best practice” for addressing campus sexual violence. Further, many professional associations and agencies advocate the implementation of bystander intervention programs as a strategy for meeting the education requirement issued by federal law (Reid & Dundes, 2017). Unfortunately, although developed on solid theoretical foundations, bystander intervention training shows limited change in behavior and no reduction in rates of sexual violence (Katz & Moore, 2013; McMahon, 2015). Further, it appears that college students have a more positive association with potential victims they perceive to be “like them” in some ways (Harrison, Howerton, Secarea, & Nguyen, 2008; Katz et al., 2017). Currently, most documented bystander intervention programs are implemented in a power-neutral way, meaning that facilitators rarely discuss the role of power and identity in sexual violence, resulting in unchecked assumptions about who victims and perpetrators are. For example, white women report being less likely to intervene in situations where the potential victim is a Black woman (Katz et al., 2017). Similarly, it is likely that most students would miss signs of a potential same-gender sexual assault because bystander intervention programs typically do not explore dynamics of same-gender sexual violence (Katz, 2015). Additionally, given the underlying assumptions and racism related to who perpetrators of sexual violence are, it is likely that many college students would not consider their friend, a “good guy,” as a potential perpetrator and may be less likely to intervene when the perpetrator is a white, middle-class college man than any other potential perpetrator. To more effectively address sexual violence through a bystander intervention frame, educators must consider and discuss the role of power in sexual violence situations. By failing to explicitly name power dynamics and interrupt myths about sexual violence, educators simply reify students’ assumptions about who victims and perpetrators of sexual violence are. Gender-neutral pronouns and strategically placed, visible people of color do little to interrupt people’s assumptions about power, identity, and sexual violence if they are not explicitly discussed. Although discussing power and identity may present some unique challenges for educators who have not been effectively trained on how to discuss power, college and university administrators must invest the time and resources to more effectively educate themselves and students about sexual violence, and accurate, complex, nuanced discussions about power and identity are an important component of this process. SEXUAL VIOLENCE AS AN EQUITY ISSUE Overall, the basic, underlying principle of more effectively addressing sexual violence requires educators and administrators to consider sexual violence an equity issue rooted in issues of power, oppression, and privilege, rather than solely seeing it as a public health issue. The historical roots of sexual violence as a tool of domination, colonization, and economic control illuminate the ways sexual violence continues to thrive on college campuses today. By referring to campus sexual violence as a “national epidemic,” researchers, journalists, and activists disassociate campus sexual violence from larger systems of power, privilege, and oppression. Epidemic implies a “short-term, isolated problem” (Deer, 2015, p. ix) and does not take into account how sexual violence has remained a constant form of power and control throughout history. Although helping people – students, parents, faculty, staff, and policymakers, among others – to understand the relationship between power and sexual violence is complicated, failing to do so is unethical. Rates of sexual violence on college campuses have not changed in over 60 years (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2004), meaning that current practices are not effective. Further, given that perpetrators of sexual violence target those in minoritized communities at higher rates than their dominant-group peers, considering sexual violence a manifestation of power, dominance, and oppression may not be so difficult to understand and present. To more effectively address sexual violence, educators and administrators must embrace their courage: courage to speak truth to power, try new and innovative approaches, be bold and different, take risks, and embrace the complexity and nuance that challenging power has always required. To effectively eradicate sexual violence on campus and beyond, educators and administrators must listen to those in the margins of the margins, the people who know the effects of unchecked power and oppression better than anyone else. Continuing to center dominant groups in addressing sexual violence will not only cause harm to people in minoritized communities but to everyone. Current strategies are not effective for anyone. What will it take for us to implement more bold, power-conscious approaches to addressing sexual violence on our campuses? MLA (Modern Language Assoc.) Linder, Chris. Sexual Violence on Campus : Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response. Vol. First edition, Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018. APA (American Psychological Assoc.) Linder, C. (2018). Sexual Violence on Campus : Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response: Vol. First edition. Emerald Publishing Limited.