In a much needed response to the debacle at the University of Iowa, new sexual assault policies have been adopted for all of the state universities in Iowa. They generally look pretty good from what I could find in articles on the new policies and in this draft report from the consultants hired to write the new policy – the new policy is not up on Iowa’s website yet so I can’t do a full analysis.
What I’m disappointed about is that I see little evidence of student involvement with developing these policies, aside from one mention of “student focus groups” in the consultants’ report (and it seems from the context that they may mean focus groups done at some point with students somewhere). Somewhat ironically, the consultants are now urging the university to inundate students with information about the new policy, “like a high-profile political campaign.” Wouldn’t it have been nice if they had taken a page from the most recent successful presidential campaign and spent time talking to their constituents, getting their input, and involving them in the process before making all of the policy decisions?
Still, it has got to be better than what they had, and as the President of the Board of Regents (the governing body which approved the new policies) said,
“These are living policies,” Miles said. “We won’t just stamp them and freeze them now.”
I see an invitation to students here…
This kind of student action is precisely what my group over at Princeton is hoping to get involved in. As far as I know, the student body does not have a whole lot to do with the way the policy is written. However, we do have some say in the adjudication process. I agree that we, as students, really need to find more ways to get involved in the actual creation of the policy. We can’t just wait for the laws to be handed down to us, particularly since we are most affected by them. Thanks for the advice, Nora.