Defining What We Mean – Accountability

This post was written by Erin, SAFER’s CAP Coordinator, and was originally published here.

If you’re a regular reader of SAFER’s blog, you’re most likely familiar with the Campus Accountability Project, our national initiative in partnership with V-Day to build a public database of student-submitted sexual assault policies with their analysis of what’s happening on the ground. We accomplish this by engaging student activists (you!) to start at the roots of what your school is really doing about it – by taking a hard look at the policy on the books.

We have a comprehensive, but easy step-by-step form that walks you through specific questions about what your school does and does not offer. From there, we offer students the opportunity to publicly and anonymously call their school out both for what is being done well but also what needs improvement. This means that the project has a two-prong aim – to gather the best and the worst practices and to engage student activists to do something about it on their campus.

If you are not a current student and are interested in supporting the Campus Accountability Project, you can help us by sending this template letter to college students you know and/or volunteering with us! You can volunteer from anywhere, and even donating a few hours of your time will really help us get the word out about what we’re trying to accomplish.

However, in all of this, we’ve never taken the time to actually expound on what we really mean by “accountability.” And in truth, it’s actually quite complicated. The first frame of accountability is how the institutions to which we belong, who both represent us and who we represent, actively engage with and put forth efforts to prevent and respond to sexual violence on campus. This post is going to deal with this aspect of accountability, The Institutional Level.

So let’s start with some elementary understandings of the word itself – accountability means, “being liable to be called to account, to have to give an explanation, to be responsible” (Oxford Dictionary). We can break this down a little bit more – accountability means to count. This means actually counting what is happening on a college campus, specifically the number of sexual assaults occurring. Way more often then not, when I go to seek out a college’s official crime statistics (which are public record and can be found online), most of the biggest schools have a staggering report of “zero” or possibly “one” for the past three years. This is not evidence of a safe community, this is evidence that the reporting system is not conducive to survivors coming forward for support.

We know that sexual violence on college campuses is a staggering silent phenomenon. The statistics are horrifying, and yet, we find over and over again policies that do not adequately take on the issue as a formative aspect of developing campus culture. This is not the case for all schools, there are some excellent examples of what a school can do to proactively handle sexual violence on campus. These schools are typically ones with extremely well-funded anti-violence programs and full-time staff that are extremely dedicated in setting the tone of prevention on campus. But let’s be real – most colleges and universities have bare-bones policies that are dictated by the requirements of the Clery Act. And the fact is, it’s not enough. It’s not enough for students (or their friends) in crisis mode looking for answers, it’s not enough for survivors seeking resources in the aftermath, it’s not enough for the young first year who is trying to figure out if what happened to them last night can actually be defined as assault.

I argue that due to the inherent power of academia to create and implement new social norms, universities have an explicit responsibility to use their resources to effectively handle the overarching problem of sexual assault. Schools have a responsibility to keep their enrolled student body safe(r) (thus the presence of campus security/police and usually strong drug and alcohol policies). Schools also have a responsibility to educate their students on the dynamics of sexuality and how to ask for and expect effective consent, what one’s rights are if their consent has been violated and what the consequences are for those who have neglected to respect someone else’s body and boundaries. Because we are embedded in rape culture, education about what is and is not ok (as dictated by consent!) is a necessary aspect of accountability and it begins with a solid policy and an institutional commitment to a safer campus.

Let me be clear that I do not think policy is the end-all, be-all of sexual violence prevention or the shape of a survivors experience when they go to use even a clear and comprehensive policy. There are a lot of variables involved in the persons responsible for enacting the policy as written. Future installations of the definition of accountability will address the beliefs, behaviors and actions of individuals as it applies to an overall vision of campus accountability.

For those of you who are more drawn to a list, here’s a short breakdown of what accountability means on a college campus when it comes to preventing and responding to sexual assault. The Campus Accountability Project captures all of this information and publishes it online in an effort to push universities to do more and do it better. (For the record, the list below is similar to the list we have for What Makes A Better Sexual Assault Policy, but underscoring three important themes that make up the meat of accountability – consistency, transparency and oversight.) We hope you can join us in furthering building the policies database and supporting student movements around the country for policy reform.

Accountability Basics: Consistency, Transparency and Oversight

• Establish the culture norm of a community free from sexual violence through the language and tone of the policy. Ensure that all students educated in the use of effective consent and how the school/community will deal with cases where consent is violated (aka, cases of sexual assault)
• primary prevention education to all students – should be taught how to intervene safely if they see a situation that may lead to an incident of sexual assault or rape (Bystander Intervention Education)
• risk reduction services such as safe rides and emergency blue lights
• consistent and visible crisis and support services for survivors, including free 24/7 advocates, free transportation to medical services, free emergency contraception and HIV prophylaxis on campus, free unlimited counseling services for survivors
• accurate and transparent crime statistics
• accomplished through clear instructions on how and where to report, anonymous reporting and a drug/alcohol amnesty clause
• a user-friendly (no legal jargon) disciplinary procedure that explicitly states that the victim/survivors’ past sexual history will not be used against them. The policy should clearly dictate the time frame to be anticipated as well as minimum and maximum sanctions. (Due Process)
• A clear protocol for any appeals, and a time frame for when appeals can be made.
• A disciplinary procedure that also articulates the rights of the accused/respondent.
• An established protocol for oversight of how policy and programming is being enacted
• An established time that the community will reconvene to ensure that the policy meets the current needs of the community, culture and infrastructure. (Every two years, for example) Ensuring that this policy review centers the voices and experiences of students, as they are the ones who have to use the policy.