Are We Overrelying on Policy as a Response to Sexual Violence?

As attention to campus sexual violence has increased in the past few years, like many in higher education, I have been both excited and anxious.  In many ways, campus sexual violence receiving increased attention from mainstream outlets like media and policy-makers is a welcome change.  Maybe people are finally listening to activists who have been attempting to raise awareness about this issue for decades and centuries.  In other ways, this attention results in many people who have the power to make change (i.e., policy makers) jumping in too quickly, without a deep enough understanding of the complexities of sexual violence, resulting in less than effective, and sometimes even harmful, strategies for addressing sexual violence.  

In many cases, administrators and lawmakers have responded to activists’ demands for increased accountability of perpetrators by creating more policy.  Policy is frequently seen as an effective way to address a problem because many people consider policy to be value-free, objective, and the final say.  I argue policy is anything but value-free and objective and is frequently applied and interpreted in a variety of ways by people responsible for enforcing it.  Additionally, focusing on policy, including the development, application, and enforcement of it, results in people shifting time and energy into logistics, rather than people.  While policy should certainly be a part of a comprehensive effort to address sexual assault, it cannot be all of our work and certainly should not consume all of our time and energy.  

Overrelying on policy to address sexual violence has significant implications.

First, overreliance on policy distracts campus leaders from addressing a problem because they’re worried about enforcing a policy.  I recently read an article in Inside Higher Ed about how campus leaders should address campus sexual assault after the recent election, including changes in key players associated with the Title IX and the Office of Civil Rights (key players in the way administrators are addressing sexual violence).  A quote from one of the campus presents was telling, “There are rumors that they’re going to lessen what we have to do. So we are potentially going to need to be far more assertive and far more vocal.”  I was struck by the language “have to do.”  I’m sure this president was well-intended and was clearly advocating for leaders to do work related sexual violence, whether required or not; yet, I find that I often hear campus administrators, educators, and activists using compliance-related language to describe campus sexual violence efforts.  What does it mean when we approach campus sexual violence from a “have to” place rather than a “should do” place? This is one significant problem with policy – people end up focusing on what they “have to do” rather than what they should be doing because it will address the problem at hand, policy or not.  And the reality is that the “should be doing” will change and evolve much more quickly than policy can keep up with.

Second, policy focuses on sexual violence on singular campuses and instances, rather than as a bigger problem impacting all campuses (and society at large).  Policy is typically rooted in a response to a problem, which often focuses on very specific instances of a problem.  An example of this is that activists frequently demand expulsion of sexual assault perpetrators as the appropriate response to sexual violence.  While this is certainly one response, and often the best response for the survivor of that perpetrator to feel safe, I worry that expulsion frequently results in that perpetrator going to another campus and committing more harm.  Research indicates that most campus perpetrators are serial perpetrators, which means that if they leave one campus, they may go to another and commit the same crime.  Further, if they aren’t welcomed on a campus at all, they will likely still commit sexual violence in the community of which they are a member.  Imagine if responding to a perpetrator of sexual violence included rehabilitation and community accountability, not just expulsion.  Imagine if we worked as hard on identifying and intervening with potential perpetrators as we do on creating policies to exclude perpetrators from particular campuses, or even campuses broadly.  

Finally, policy and enforcement privileges people with power.  Throughout history, law and policy have been written with people with dominant identities in mind (white, cisgender, heterosexual, Christian, middle-class people).  There is really no such thing as “neutral” or “value-free.” Given the way our society functions, “neutral” is really code for “dominant” (often coded with language “typical” or “normal”).  As Iverson illustrates in a discourse analysis of sexual violence policy, language used in sexual violence policy results in policies being anything but “neutral.”  Additionally, the historical context in which sexual violence laws were written indicates that sexual violence laws were written to center wealthy white fathers.  The original sexual violence laws in the U.S. were rooted in property law – sexual assault was a violation was of the father or husband of a girl or woman who was assaulted, with the assumption being that his “property” of his daughter was devalued because she was no longer “pure” enough to be married off to a “good” (i.e., white, middle-class, Christian) man.  Today, this translates to victims of sexual violence being taken more seriously if they were virgins when they were assaulted or if they are considered “good” girls by society’s dominant norms.  

Where does this leave us?

We must ensure that policy is a floor, not a ceiling, in our campuses sexual violence prevention and response efforts.  When we use language like “have to,” we should stop and think for a minute.  Even if we “have to do” something, what else “should” we be doing? And why? And how can we make it happen?  What are the other necessary components of addressing sexual violence that go with this policy? What is the purpose of the policy? Sometimes understanding the why can help turn the “have to” into a “want to.”

Next, what would it mean to have power-conscious policy? What does it look like to consider ways that different people experience sexual violence when writing policy? Sure, gender-neutral language is a place to start.  But what about additional identities? What about the enforcement of this policy? Just because the policy doesn’t say man as perpetrator, woman as victim, doesn’t mean that it’s not enforced that way.  What strategies do you use to complicate the nature of sexual assault policy?

Chris Linder

University of Georgia

Assistant Professor, College Student Affairs Administration

linder@uga.edu

@proflinder