How Exciting is the Campus SAVE Act? SO VERY EXCITING!

While we’ve been busy asking you all to look into your campus sexual assault policy (and you’ve responded! We’ve had 16 new submissions over the last two days and our Winter Break Challenge is 72 strong and growing! Keep it going!!!), there has also been some really exciting policy reform momentum building at the federal level. On Tuesday, Virginia Congressman Tom Perriello introduced the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act (Campus SAVE Act) to the House of Representatives. The act is a major revamp of the Campus Sexual Assault Victim’s Bill of Rights, which was signed into law in 1992 to build on the Clery Act.

The Campus SAVE Act is a much needed update to current federal policy, and offers far more comprehensive guidelines . In short, it’s incredibly amazing and exciting to see this kind of legislation at play at the federal level. But to get more specific, the bill:

• Expands the list of offenses that must be covered in a campus sexual assault policy to include “sex offenses and other intimate partner violence, including stalking, dating violence, sexual violence, and domestic violence offenses.”
• Mandates primary prevention programming that includes defining consent and bystander intervention training (!!!) and awareness education that includes instructions for how to report offenses that occur on OR off campus
• States that victims will be provided with full explanations of their options for health, mental health, and legal resources both on and off campus, as well as their right to involve local police or campus security AND how they can obtain a restraining order/order of protection/no contact order.
• Requires that all disciplinary proceedings must be “conducted by officials trained to understand the issues of sex offenses and other intimate partner violence.”

And that’s not even all of it. I can’t stress enough what a major accomplishment this would be if passed. What is every college student was given bystander training? What if staff had to receive training in the dynamics of sexual assault and intimate partner violence? What if schools were required to acknowledge that stalking and dating violence are issues on their campuses??? Definitely check out the full text of the bill and contact your representative to encourage them to co-sponsor the Campus SAVE Act. You might notice that its policy requirements are getting a little (or a lot!) closer to what SAFER thinks makes a better sexual assault policy!