Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley vowed to fight proposed Trump administration rules that would make it tougher to punish perpetrators of campus sexual assault during a meeting with Portland State leaders on Monday.
The proposals by Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would replace Obama-era standards in which sexual offenders can be found guilty based on a preponderance of evidence. The replacement would be “clear and convincing evidence,” a tougher standard.
DeVos is also proposing that campuses allow mediation, in which the accuser and the accused would sit down at a table and hash out their differences. The concept has garnered widespread criticism from victims’ rights advocates, who say that the prospect of such a meeting would prevent many accusers from coming forward.
The rules are likely to remain in the talking stage for another year or more. In the meantime, college campuses, including PSU, are free to continuing handling sexual assault cases the way they have in the past decade.
Addressing a panel of PSU President Rahmat Shoureshi and other senior staff, Wyden said: “I’m very proud of you and very angry with how the Trump administration is trying to turn back the clock.”
The panel included Carmen Suarez, vice president for PSU’s Global Diversity and Inclusion, who said PSU will continue to educate students, faculty and staff about campus sexual assault and maintain the way it handles sexual assault and harassment cases.
“That kind of education will not change,” she said. “The work we’re doing and the work other colleges are doing will go on.”
The only non-PSU person on the panel was victims’ advocate Brenda Tracy, who reported to police that was gang-raped by four men – two of them Oregon State University football players -- in 1998. Tracy said she was particularly disturbed by the idea of mediation in sexual assault cases.
“Having been raped by four men, the idea of sitting across from even one of them makes me sick to my stomach,” she said through tears. “I don’t know of any survivor who would want to come forward if they knew they’d have to sit down and face their attacker.”
One in seven undergraduate women at PSU said they’ve experienced some form of sexual violence, according to panel member Julie Caron, associate vice president for Global Diversity and Inclusion. She said Oregon laws support victims in sexual assault cases.
“But what about other states where students won’t have those resources?” she said.
Merkley said that progress in the ways college campuses educate their communities about sexual assault and provide support to victims have made victims more comfortable about reporting crimes.
“That comfort in reporting plays a big part in deterrence. We simply cannot go backwards,” he said.
Contact John Kirkland at jrk3@pdx.edu