Over the past year, the term “title IX violations” has been thrown around quite a bit. Public institutions across the U.S. have been deservingly accused of violating Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972 by refusing to acknowledge sexual assault, eliminating the opportunity for inappropriate student-professor relationships or properly educating students on consent and respect practices.
As the number of instances reported at each university continues to grow — along with student and public outrage — universities have been responding to bad press that has befallen their respective institutions by strategically implementing policies that should have been pre-emptively decided years ago. ASU is one of those institutions.
Last year, The State Press headed an investigative report examining student-professor relationships in Barrett, the Honors College while seeking to expose the truth about rape culture at ASU. An alarming number of students have continued to come forward with sexual misconduct allegations relating to professors at ASU.
However, last year was not the beginning of sexual misconduct at ASU. Sexual assault claims made by students have been disregarded by administrators since 2012 — or before — when there were “nine cases of sexual assault (forcible sex offenses) reported to Student Rights Responsibilities ... while ASU Police had 19 forcible sex offenses reported,” according to an email from former University spokeswoman Julie Newberg.
This week, ASU's faculty senate voted to update an outdated University position on student-faculty relationships. While the ban previously only prohibited faculty from relationships with students who were “currently enrolled in a course being taught by the faculty member or graduate assistant or whose performance is currently being supervised or evaluated by the faculty member or graduate student,” it now eliminates nearly all possibilities for a relationship between a faculty member and students who they would teach, oversee or advise.
Student-faculty relationships create a power dynamic that is not conducive to the atmosphere of an institution designed for educational purposes. While ASU is beginning to address the prevalent rape culture ingrained in the University, it’s a shame that programs and policies — such as the Title IX task force, Consent and Respect course and newly updated student-faculty relationship position — were put in place only after federal investigation of Title IX violations began.
As the New American University, ASU seeks to be known as a trailblazer for institutions around the nation. While our University may be excelling in science, health and education rankings, it continues to remain far behind in sexual assault awareness and protection. ASU needs to become more proactive and foresee the dangers of failing to implement precautionary policies when dealing with a subject as controversial as sexual conduct. It’s the least we could ask as students.
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