Sexual Violence at Institutions of Higher Education

[Excerpt] Recent high-profile incidents of sexual violence on campus have heightened congressional and administrative scrutiny of the policies and procedures that institutions of higher education (IHEs) use to address such violence. The Obama Administration has taken steps to facilitate the reporting of sexual violence and to help ensure that appropriate procedures and services are in place. Meanwhile, legislators have introduced several bills that seek to strengthen or build on existing laws pertaining to campus sexual violence, including, in the 114th Congress, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act (CASA, H.R. 1310/S. 590), SOS Campus Act (SOS, H.R. 1490/S. 706), HALT Campus Sexual Violence Act (HALT, H.R. 2680), Safe Campus Act of 2015 (Safe Act, H.R. 3403), and Fair Campus Act of 2015 (Fair Act, H.R. 3408). Currently, there are two federal statutes that address sexual violence on college campuses: the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, as amended (Clery Act), and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX). The Department of Education (ED) has primary responsibility for enforcing these laws. This report provides background information on sexual violence on campus and its prevalence, descriptions of the Clery Act and Title IX, and an analysis of prominent policy and legal issues related to these two statutes. It also includes a brief description of a related third statute focused on educational privacy