Sexual Assault In Schools

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Sexual assault among college students has increased at an alarming rate. Among undergraduate students, 23.1% of females and 5.4% of male’s experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence, or incapacitation (RAINN). As a female college student, seeing a statistic like this is upsetting. It also makes me wonder about how the process of disciplining the assaulter works. In many colleges, cases like these are not handed directly over to law enforcement and are instead dealt with in each school’s own campus judicial system. There is an issue with this, the school is choosing to discipline the assaulter instead of law enforcement taking over and bringing the case to federal court. College sexual assault cases should be dealt with …show more content…

More and more cases of sexual assault are being handled through these courts as well. Unfortunately, because this is not a court of law the people accused face very light punishments for serious crimes like rape. The most a college judicial court can do is expel the guilty party, and sometimes even less; some students found guilty of sexual assault have even been let off with suspension. It was decided that universities must respond to incidents of sexual discrimination under Title IX, the courts ruled that colleges must oversee rectifying the incidents. Sexual assault falls under this umbrella term for sexual discrimination so colleges can handle cases that deal with this. But Title IX and our federal judicial system are very different. The federal judicial system aims to discipline the guilty party and Title IX is based more on fighting against discrimination on college campuses. Sexual assault is happening often on college campuses and it’s important for us to understand exactly what that entails. So, what is sexual assault? Sexual assault is a type of sexual violence. From forced and unwanted sexual activity to rape it is nonconsensual sexual activities against the victims will. Sexual assault is prevalent among people ages 18-24. Women in this age group who are in college are three times more likely to experience sexual violence than women of all ages …show more content…

Barbara Mantel’s article “Campus Sexual Assault: Do Colleges Handle Allegations Fairly?” discusses points on why colleges should deal with the cases instead of law enforcement. Her main argument for this is that reporting’s from sexual assault survivors would drop if they were forced to go to the police instead of their campus judicial system. She argues that campus judicial systems can offer support and understanding that the police cannot. She also claims that if colleges can’t act themselves, institutions would have no way to protect the campus community. While law enforcement officials take on the process of investigating the case, determining whether to prosecute the accused, and executing their case, then the campuses would be less safe if this were the only way to address a known threat to the community. She believes that having the police deal with sexual assaults on the campus it will take the police away from dealing with other issues that need attention. Sexual assault is a very significant offense and I believe it deserves the full attention of the campus police or a local police force and should not be dealt with

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