Legal and Political Responses to Campus Sexual Assault

Abstract

Despite a long history of reform efforts, college students remain vulnerable to sexual harassment and assault on campus. This article surveys that history from the 1970s to the present, including a flurry of enforcement activity under President Obama and a backlash and reversed course under Trump. Many of the systems—for example law, education, and public health—designed to ameliorate the epidemic of campus sexual assault have failed to do so. These failures have been particularly pronounced for victims who experience multiple intersecting inequalities. The resulting frustration with legal remedies through campus Title IX processes and the criminal and civil justice system has spurred a new interest in strategies to prevent sexual assault in the first place. Recent political developments, including the #MeToo movement, suggest a potential for democratic political accountability to make progress where legal reform efforts and campus prevention programming have thus far been unsuccessful.