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Sunday, April 29, 2012

On campus, debate over civil rights and rape


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.

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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.