The White House Offers Guidelines for Preventing and Dealing With Sexual Assault on Campus

The White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault has issued its first report entitled Not Alone. The task force has unveiled a number of steps that it believes colleges and universities should take to prevent sexual assault and to deal with sexual misconduct when it occurs.

The task force urges colleges to survey their campuses on attitudes on sexual misconduct and provides a toolkit for doing so. The report states, “We urge schools to show they’re serious about the problem by conducting the survey next year.” The report also calls on colleges to engage men on campus in prevention efforts.

On dealing with sexual assaults when they occur, the task force provides colleges with a model reporting and confidentiality protocol for victims of sexual assault. A checklist is provided for schools to use in assessing their policies on sexual misconduct. The report urges colleges and universities to train school officials on dealing with sexual assaults and to design their disciplinary procedures to ensure victims’ rights.

The full report may be downloaded by clicking here.