IU can act or it can falter

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights took a bold step Wednesday — in keeping with the White House’s push for more transparency when it comes to sexual assaults on campus — by releasing a list of universities under investigation for possible Title IX violations because of the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints.

IU currently finds itself on that list.

Vice President Joe Biden told men everywhere to step up Tuesday at the official unveiling of the report and recommendations by the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault.

“We’ve got to change this vast middle of the male population to say, ‘You have an affirmative obligation to intervene,’” Biden said.

While we should continue to target men and emphasize the importance of bystander intervention, there’s another actor on campus whom the task force believes must make changes if we are to seriously tackle the issue of sexual assault — the universities.

A long list of colleges have found themselves in the news for the mishandling of sexual assault cases or completely covering them up.

Public colleges and universities are institutions we trust with our well-being, our futures and who we’ve come — or at least want — to believe are looking out for our best interest.

Yet the fact that colleges are actively being investigated for breaching that trust is frightening.

What’s even more horrifying is the possibility that universities continue to fail survivors of sexual assault.

This semester, two courageous women shared their powerful stories on the pages of this section regarding their sexual assaults.

Both were sobering reminders of the human toll of failing to prevent rape and the fact that sexual assault does, in fact, happen on our campus much more often than we would like to believe.

Even if IU’s place among the list of colleges being investigated is purely procedural, it doesn’t mean IU should be complacent in taking extra steps to address an issue that clearly exists on our campus.

What matters is whether the University chooses to move forward now that the White House task force has released its findings and its recommendations — many of which fall on the laps of administrators to put into place.

The most tangible of these recommendations, which IU could easily institute, are campus-wide anonymous surveys designed to give colleges a better picture of the number of sexual assaults that occur versus the few that are actually reported.
The other primary recommendation from the task force IU could implement is increasing transparency.

One of the ways for IU to do exactly that would be by moving forward with the Indiana Daily Student Editorial Board’s call for the Office of Student Ethics to disclose whether sexual assaults have occurred in greek houses.

In an online poll on the IDS website, 87 percent of respondents said they believe the student ethics office should do so, in comparison to 7 percent who would oppose the change.

IU has the tools to make a change and join this renewed push against sexual assault. It’s only a matter of whether the administration is willing to do so.

edsalas@indiana.edu