“According to the Justice Department, young women between the ages of 16 and 24 consistently experience the highest rate of intimate partner violence.”
Last December, in the wake of the now-discredited Rolling Stone article on campus sexual assault, I went to the University of Virginia to meet with members of One Less, a group that advocates for survivors of rape and sexual assault on campus.
I needed their advice.
According to the Justice Department, young women between the ages of 16 and 24 consistently experience the highest rate of intimate partner violence.
Even though Rolling Stone would soon be retracting the piece, there was no denying the severity of the problem at schools across the country, and I wanted to better understand how federal policy changes could make a difference.
I drove to Charlottesville on a Friday afternoon and spent more than two hours meeting with this impressive group of leaders. No administrators, no reporters. Just a chance to hear directly from Virginia students and brainstorm ways lawmakers could be helpful in addressing the problem, or for that matter, unhelpful.
One frustration echoed by many of the students surprised me the most. It didn’t have anything to do with a college campus. It was about middle and high school.
They said that the first time many of them had learned anything about consent or sexual violence was college orientation. Many students at colleges across the country, they told me, show up on their first day without enough information — or with misinformation — about safe relationship behavior.
They agreed that education could be a part of the solution to preventing sexual assault and that schools could help instill values about safe behaviors early on.
It just seemed too obvious — if the highest rate of intimate partner violence affects young people between the ages of 16 and 24, why wouldn’t we provide information in secondary school to help them protect themselves?
What about Americans who don’t attend traditional colleges or universities, or who join the military? I quickly discovered that there is no federal requirement that public secondary health education courses cover topics like prevention of sexual assault and discussions about communication in safe relationships.
“Health education classes should not be just about reproductive biology but also should include information on what to do if you’re feeling pressured or coerced, or even fear violence, in a relationship.”
I teamed up with Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, a former courtroom prosecutor of sex crimes, to write the Teach Safe Relationships Act, a bill that requires any school system in the country that receives certain types of federal funding to report on what it’s doing to teach students safe relationship behavior. That’s defined as developing effective communication skills and recognizing and preventing coercion, violence or abuse, including teen and dating violence, stalking, domestic abuse, and sexual violence and harassment.
The idea is that when kids are in middle or high school, health education classes should not be just about reproductive biology but also should include information on what to do if you’re feeling pressured or coerced, or even fear violence, in a relationship.
Under this proposal, educators have the flexibility to determine the strategies and curriculum most appropriate for their students, while ensuring that schools are taking meaningful steps to teach students about sexual assault and dating violence.
Last week, Teach Safe made significant progress. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray, the chair and ranking member of the Senate HELP Committee, included key provisions of our bill in the Senate’s bipartisan Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization bill that will replace No Child Left Behind.
As the Senate continues to debate this important measure, I’m hopeful that with the bill’s passage, we can deliver an important rewrite of federal law that’s responsive to the concerns of the U.Va. students and helps prevent sexual assault on and off our college campuses.
