USA Today
Originally Published April 21, 2012
For months after Kristina Ponischil was raped at a party in
her off-campus apartment, her life at Western Washington University was
hell.
Police wouldn't act, as often happens in college towns with
"he said, she said" accounts of alcohol-influenced student encounters
behind closed doors. Despite a restraining order, she kept running into her
assailant on campus, prompting panic attacks.
Once, the man who'd raped her brushed up against Ponischil
in the bookstore, then smirked.
"I was just constantly worried that I would run into
him again," Ponischil said.
But if the criminal justice system let Ponischil down,Western
Washington did not. When she finally told an administrator what
happened, the school sprang to action, offering her the support she needed.
Perhaps most importantly, the campus judicial system, using a lower standard of
proof than criminal courts, suspended her assailant, removing him from campus
until she graduated in 2009.
(cut)
The college's response wasn't just a moral obligation; it
was also a legal one.
June marks the 40th anniversary of Title IX,
the federal gender-equity law that has made headlines mostly on the sports
pages. But over the last decade or so, through a series of court rulings and
more recently controversial guidance published by Obama administration, Title
IX has shifted onto a different patch of contentious terrain — sexual assault
on college campuses. It is transforming how colleges must respond to
allegations of sexual violence.
