“New School University’s re-drafting faulty Sexual Assault Policy”
A group of staff and students at The New School are preparing a revision of The University’s Sexual Harassment policy, which has not been revised since 2004, to present it in a Board of Regents meeting in April.
Ms. Tamara Oyola, a health educator at the New School, as well as a member of the ‘re-drafting team,’ was interviewed in regards to the revision. Among the problems of the current policy, available online through The New School’s ‘Student Services’ tab, Ms. Oyola highlighted there is only a general definition of “Sexual Assault;” there is no specificity about the types of sexual assault. Also, Oyola noted, there are no direct links to University and community resources available to students, faculty and staff. “If there are any” she said “they are not updated, like the contact information for St. Vincent’s Hospital in the village, which is now closed.”
Tracy Robbins, Assistant Vice President for Student Health & Support Services, has been actively involved in the re-drafting process along with Oyola and other team members from Student Services. At the same time, the Feminist Collective was in conversation with Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER), an organization dedicated to “help organize change by empowering student-led campaigns to reform college sexual assault policies,” according to their Website. The feminist collective organized, back in October, a teach-in with SAFER that included a policy-writing workshop. During the exercise, the students realized the faults in their own University’s Sexual Harassment-Assault Policy. Ms. Robbins could not be contacted for an interview on time, but according to Oyola, Robbins reached out to The Feminist Collective, thinking they would provide the ideal student input to the process.
Rihannon Love Auriemma, a student from the University’s Feminist Collective who’s been actively engaged in the process of re-drafting the policy as well, expanded on the faults of the current policy: “There is no definition of consent. A definition of consent not only establishes what is considered assault by the school, but is also a valuable tool for students in terms of sexual education.” Auriemma noted that one of the major issues, besides blurry definitions, is that the Sexual Harassment policy presents a reporting process that is “not transparent in the slightest sense.”
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