Improved Responsiveness to Sexual Assaults on Campus: The University of Iowa’s Plan

ACADEME BLOG

The ongoing media concentration on cases of domestic abuse perpetrated by NFL players against their spouses and children has, for the moment, pushed the issue of sexual assaults on our college campuses largely to the margins of our national attention. Our ability to solve problems seems to be diminishing in proportion to the ability—or willingness–of our news media to focus on more than one or two issues at a time.

I have previously criticized the administration at the University of Iowa for its handling of the “Vodka Sam” incident [see: http://academeblog.org/2013/09/11/vodka-sam-may-be-a-symptom-of-a-problem-but-she-herself-is-not-the-problem-not-even-the-public-relations-problem/ and http://academeblog.org/2014/04/02/vodka-sam-redux-why-hannah-horvath-may-end-up-attending-the-iowa-writers-workshop-but-never-actually-set-foot-on-the-university-of-iowa-campus/]. But, to its credit, the university administration has developed a straightforward plan for addressing sexual assaults on campus more expeditiously and effectively. I do not know how well the plan is actually working, but what I do think is very commendable is that the university has created a website on which it is tracking its progress…

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