Guaranteeing Students’ Rights on Campus
Sexual assault remains a significant problem on college campuses, despite the fact that federal law guarantees all students the right to an education free from sexual harassment and sexual violence.
Is Your Campus Compliant with the Campus SaVE Act?
Your institution must be committed to maintaining a safe work and academic environment free from sexual misconduct of any form. A violation of this commitment is in violation of the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act. Such violations are grounds for disciplinary actions, up to and including dismissal from the institution.
To fully understand the SaVE Act and how to make sure your campus is compliant, it’s important to make sure campus officials are well aware of the terminology used. Institutions for higher education are required to define policies with the following:
Violence by a person who has been in a romantic or intimate relationship with the victim. Whether there was such relationship will be gauged by its length, type, and frequency of interaction.
Sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of the victim. Forms of sexual assault are attempted rape, fondling or unwanted sexual touching, forcing a victim to perform sexual acts, and rape.
Asserted violent misdemeanor and felony offenses committed by the victim’s current or former spouse, current or former cohabitant, person similarly situated under domestic or family violence law, or anyone else protected under domestic or family violence law.
A course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for her, his, or others’ safety, or to suffer substantial emotional distress.
The Campus SaVE Act requires that higher education institutions receiving federal funding must increase the scope of sexual violence crimes on campus and publish them in their Annual Security Report (ASR).
Incidents that occur off-campus must also be reported as this Act defines property adjacent to the university and areas such as off-campus housing to be within the university’s scope.
Campuses are required to maintain statistics on dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking incidents. It’s also important that each institution clarifies their definitions for anti-sexual violence policies and procedures in their Annual Security Report.
The Campus SaVE Act also requires that higher education institutions provide accommodations and protection for survivors, students, or employees, regardless if the incident took place on- or off-campus. Below are further details on how to comply with the SaVE Act:
The SaVE Act clarifies standards for disciplinary hearings corresponding to sexual violence reporting. Institutions must implement and enforce disciplinary hearings under the following pretenses:
Above are high level guidelines for institutions to understand the additional responsibilities. If you’d like more details regarding the disciplinary standards requirements, please click here.
The Campus SaVE Act requires that higher education institutions provide education or training for employees and students on domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
The following guidelines were given to help institutions comply:
Information was provided by The Clery Center.
The SafeColleges Training System includes Primary Sexual Violence Prevention and Supplemental Sexual Violence Prevention student courses that comply with Campus SaVE Act mandates. Our reality-based, engaging student sexual violence prevention, which is customized by student type, educates students about consent, healthy relationships, bystander intervention, the realities of sexual assault, and more. We also have a Campus SaVE Act course that educates employees on SaVE requirements, their responsibilities, and strategies to prevent sexual violence.
The SafeColleges Online Tip Reporting System can be used to prevent and investigate sexual assault, hazing, discrimination, threats of violence and more on your campus. Alert lets students, faculty and staff anonymously report tips to your administration 24/7 from any web-enabled device. Users can submit tips through the phone, text, email and website. A SafeColleges Alert Mobile App will be available soon for students, faculty, and staff
