What Does The Law Say Regarding Sexual Assault At Colleges and Universities?

There’s an increasing number of sexual misconduct incidents reported every day to United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights and people are happy than ever that there’s finally a bounce back from young victims of colleges and universities.

Nowadays, more colleges and universities are reporting one-of-a-kind of inappropriate behavior to legal officials and so their concern is immediately administered by federal investigations on their certain campuses. However, In April, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) notified all colleges and universities through a letter specifying points to deal sexual misconduct under Title IX, a 1972 gender-equity law governing educational institutions those who have federal funds.

The prominent points of the letter address the timelines for filing cases, guidelines to ease out the victims and curing the hostile environments. So far at least 25 colleges and universities, from Stanford University to the University of Virginia have already undertaken such new policies in response to the legal letter say OCR officials calling it the “wake up call” that was needed.

Among all other issues notice, one significant is that college authorities must now develop a “preponderance of the evidence” standard when refereeing sexual assault incidents. It is simply needed to ensure a university judicial board at least 50 percent regarding the incident. While this standard is well-practiced, some campuses use a “clear and convincing” standard, which requires about 75 percent confirmation of an incident. In addition to the response generation of the April letter, OCR has been conducting inquiries at specific educational institutions. Especially it got widely spread across the nation when a student from the University Of Notre Dame committed suicide after accusing a fellow student of sexual assault. We still don’t know whether the victim back then hired an assault lawyer to get justice or not but the college readily improved and updated its sexual assault policies and even maintained a preponderance of the evidence standard instead.

What Does The Law Say Regarding Sexual Assault At Colleges and Universities?

“Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”), 20 U.S.C. Sec.1681, et seq. prohibits sex discrimination in any federally funded educational program or activity. Title IX also covers sexual violence and obligates schools to do the following. Once a school knows or reasonably should know a sexual assault it must take appropriate action to investigate”

·         “If sexual violence did happen the school must take immediate effective response to end it, prevent it, and address the effects”.

•  “A school must take steps to protect the victim.”
•  “A school must provide a complaint procedure for students to report sexual discrimination, harassment, and assault. The procedures must present an equal opportunity for the accused and accuser to present evidence and appeal.”
•  “A school must now use the preponderance of the evidence standard (51 percent) in adjudicating student judicial hearings.”
• “A school must notify both parties of the outcome.”

Lastly, if you’re one of the college students who has just experienced something inexcusable as we mentioned in this article then first of all, we’re sorry and secondly; it’s your time to stand against from any sort of assault you have had in the past.

Consult a well-trained assault lawyer from Gerri Wiebe today. They are quite popular in delivering legal help in Winnipeg and have years of extensive experience in proving all assault charges, and in particular, sexual assault allegations true. Also, they charge you an affordable amount as compared to other legal attorneys of the state.