Campus-Based Sexual Assault Victim Advocacy and Title IX: Revisiting Tensions Between Grassroots Activism and the Criminal Justice System

• DOI: 10.1177/1557085118772087
• Author: Sarah Jane Brubaker
• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Date: 01 July 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085118772087

Feminist Criminology

2019, Vol. 14(3) 307 –329

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085118772087

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Article

Campus-Based Sexual Assault

Victim Advocacy and Title IX:

Revisiting Tensions Between

Grassroots Activism and the

Criminal Justice System

Sarah Jane Brubaker1

Abstract

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) Dear Colleague

Letter (DCL) reinvigorated the application of Title IX to campus sexual assault and

changed the way campuses are handling these incidents. This article explores Title

IX from the standpoint of campus-based victim advocates working within the formal

system of higher education and compares this approach to campus sexual assault

with historical tensions between feminist grassroots activists and the criminal justice

system. Advocates’ mixed allegiances to both the institution and to feminist ideals of

survivor empowerment produce conflicts and identify needs for system advocacy.

Keywords

sexual assault, social movements, victim services, qualitative research, activism

Although Title IX is an educational policy rather than a criminal law or policy, at least

some observers have called it a “quasi-criminal justice, investigative and judicial

response to sexual misconduct” (Koss, Wilgus, & Williamsen, 2014, p. 242). In this

article, I examine this analogy more deeply, drawing on in-depth interviews with cam-

pus-based sexual assault victim advocates. I situate the analysis within three distinct

literatures. I first describe the critical role that advocates play in campuses’ response to

sexual assault, connecting the field to the battered women’s movement. Next, I

describe historical connections and tensions between grassroots feminist antiviolence

1Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sarah Jane Brubaker, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia

Commonwealth University, 1001 West Franklin Street, 2010B, Richmond, VA 23284, USA.

Email: sbrubaker@vcu.edu

772087FCXXXX10.1177/1557085118772087Feminist CriminologyBrubaker

research-article2018

308 Feminist Criminology 14(3)

movements and the formal criminal justice system, and identify two major criticisms

and costs of that complicated alliance to the movement, that is, it essentialized privi-

leged women’s experiences and resulted in formal practices and policies that were

ineffective and harmful. I then provide a brief overview of the Department of

Education’s (DOE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) guidance to campuses via the Dear

Colleague Letter (DCL) of 2011 on how to apply Title IX to campus sexual assault

(U.S. DOE, OCR, 2011), and I identify ways that this campus response is different

from that of the criminal justice system.

My analysis then focuses on in-depth interviews with campus sexual assault victim

advocates and the ways that their roles and responsibilities have been enabled and

constricted by this new approach to addressing campus sexual assault. I compare and

contrast this current arrangement and dynamic with the historical reliance of the femi-

nist antiviolence movement on the criminal justice system. I argue that both criminal

justice and Title IX legal/formal system responses to violence have shared some simi-

lar successes in terms of defining sexual assault as unacceptable and holding offenders

accountable. At the same time, the Title IX framing of and response to campus sexual

assault has resulted in unintended negative consequences (some similar to and some

different from the criminal justice system) for victims, through the implementation of

particular processes, practices, and procedures. Advocates’ unique position within this

arrangement, and their conflicting allegiances to the institutions and to survivors pro-

vide valuable insights into new manifestations of continued tensions between social

activism and formal systems, and a deeper understanding of advocacy and its

challenges.

Advocacy and the Battered Women’s Movement

An advocate’s role is typically to support victims by protecting their right to control

the process and prioritizing their needs over those of others participating in the

response to an assault. The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual

Assault, for example, recommended that as part of universities’ efforts to respond

more effectively to campus sexual assaults, campuses develop Memoranda of

Understanding with community agencies, both law enforcement and victim services,

further expanding the network of providers who address sexual assault (White House

Task Force, 2014). In some cases, universities may not employ advocates on campus,

and instead, rely on victim services from community agencies such as nonprofit or

government-funded rape crisis centers or domestic violence agencies (Brubaker &

Mancini, 2017). Campus-based advocates thus also assist survivors as they navigate

the system and interact with various offices, agencies, and campus and community

authorities.

Recent widespread research into campus sexual assault has all but ignored the role

of advocates, but there is ample evidence of their value in responding to gender vio-

lence (for example, see Nichols, 2013b; Zweig & Burt, 2007). Specifically, survivors

experience less violence over time, report a higher quality of life and social support,

and have greater access to community resources, when they work with advocates