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The Chronicle T H E I N D E P E N D E N T D A I LY AT D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2015
WWW.DUKECHRONICLE.COM
ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH YEAR, ISSUE 48
Students urge Safe Campus Act complicates sexual assault cases
admins to take action Claire Ballentine The Chronicle Many students have expressed frustration with the University’s response to the death threat including a homophobic slur written on a wall in East Residence Hall Thursday. The threat against freshman Jack Donahue—written in black marker— was discovered at approximately 3 a.m. Thursday morning and was removed Thursday afternoon. The Office of Student Affairs released an email Friday night at approximately 11:30 p.m. to the student body stating that “Duke does not and will never condone intolerance” after a protest was held on the Chapel steps that afternoon. Students said they were dissatisfied with the email’s wording and the relatively delayed response from Duke administration almost 48 hours after the threat was first discovered. “We do appreciate [the email] but other universities are setting precedents much higher,” said senior Tyler Nelson, president of Blue Devils United. “[The administration] stepping up a little would do a lot to make this campus a more inclusive place.” Nelson explained that he wished the administration had responded in a “right up front and personal” way, adding that the administration is responsible for setting precedents for students and future campus leaders. See RESPONSE on Page 12
Sanjeev Dasgupta | The Chronicle BDU President Tyler Nelson implored administration to be more forthright in responding to last week’s death threat.
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Graphic by Lucy Zhang | The Chronicle
Lucy Zhang The Chronicle The Safe Campus Act—a federal bill put forth in the House of Representatives to address sexual violence on college campuses—has raised discussion among Duke faculty and students. There are currently several proposed bills in Congress that deal with sexual misconduct, including the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, the Safe Campus Act and the Fair Campus Act. The Safe Campus Act—which requires that victims report to the police and administration in order to prosecute a student for sexual assault—has created controversy on many college campuses, including at Duke. Several administrators and students have voiced their opinion amid the debate surrounding the bill. “The Safe Campus Act would prevent a school from enforcing its policies on sexual misconduct unless the reporting student agrees to a police investigation,” wrote Howard Kallem, director of Title IX compliance at Duke, in an email. Even then, only once the police
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department notifies the school of the student’s report can the case proceed. Kallem noted that the federal Violence Against Women Act, in place since 1994, recognizes that a student may not want to involve the police in certain situations and requires that students be made aware of their right to file or not file a police report. In addition, the Safe Campus Act imposes due process requirements for sexual misconduct proceedings. These requirements, Kallem noted, tend to focus the bill on the responding party rather than the reporting victim. “For example, [the Safe Campus Act] requires schools to provide responding parties with the opportunity to ‘safely confront witnesses, including the complainant,’ without requiring a similar opportunity for reporting parties, and it provides for judicial review of a school’s decision for the responding party but not for the reporting party/complainant,” Kallem wrote. Junior Dana Raphael, who is a columnist for The Chronicle, expanded on the potential limitations of the Act, highlighting that the Safe Campus Act
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overlooks the fact that the university adjudication process is meant to be distinct from criminal proceedings. For instance, Raphael gave the example that in North Carolina, anal rape does not legally qualify as rape, but at Duke, it is qualified as rape under the University’s sexual misconduct policy. “It is completely insane to say that unless a survivor goes through the trauma that is a police investigation, they can’t get any services from their school,” Raphael wrote in an email. “That completely reneges on Title IX’s promises to protect people from sex-based discrimination—including sexual assault—in their schooling.” Title IX entails that colleges and universities have an independent obligation to deal with sexual misconduct in a timely fashion regardless of whether a police investigation occurs. “Title IX also states that a criminal investigation into allegations of sexual violence does not substitute the school’s duty to respond to complaints promptly and equitably,” Kallem wrote, adding that police and prosecutors use different legal See SAFE CAMPUS ACT on Page 12
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