Consensual sex under title IX.

• Author: Lissack, Michael
• Position: MIND BODY

THE TIME HAS COME to take direct action to prevent campus sexual violence and related hostile environments. Sexual assaults on your campus (or any campus) will not be solved through well-intentioned "awareness" campaigns. Our students instinctively have learned to "say the right things" when it comes to discussing campus sexual assault without actual behavioral change. As a result, campus surveys may announce "improved climate," but that is not enough to effect real change in behaviors. It is time we deal with the root problem--negligent and disrespectful behavior. Leaders must find a way to change the habits these behaviors have become for too many students. This is what Title IX requires--and it is the right thing to do.

Of course, no awareness campaign or behavioral program can protect any campus from those with a premeditated intention to commit rape. However, intentional perpetrators are rare. The vast majority of assault-related trauma and disputes arise, not from the realm of criminal premeditation, but instead from ambiguous areas of behavior. Awareness campaigns without behavioral shifts allow students to substitute talk for actions. Words are not a substitute for personal vigilance, developing mutual respect in relationships, and explicitly discussing individual choices with prospective partners.

It is time for campuses to shift into producing better interpersonal behaviors. This requires changing the environment in which these behaviors occur. For example, when seat belt laws were enacted, compliance never got over 30% despite expensive awareness campaigns. The solution: change the behavioral context by requiring car companies to install self-fastening seatbelts (attached to both door and seat). A few years after that context change, compliance rose to above 80%.

This action plan proposes you adopt a similarly effective environment change. The Respectful Behavior Program has three integrated parts, which must be implemented together to ensure success:

* Orientation programs focused on mutual respect and affirmative consent should be held every semester and remain mandatory for everyone on campus--students, faculty, and staff--without exception. Repetition is important. If your program is to be meaningful to the students, it must distinguish between behavior that occurs within the boundaries of a mutually respectful relationship and that which occurs in the absence of such a relationship. The students make this distinction every...