[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 176 (Tuesday, October 31, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1461-E1462]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CANDICE JACKSON: TESTIMONY BEFORE THE BIPARTISIAN TASK FORCE TO END 
                            SEXUAL VIOLENCE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ANN M. KUSTER

                            of new hampshire

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 31, 2017

  Ms. KUSTER of New Hampshire. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the 
following:

       Thank you Co-Chairs Joyce, Kuster, Meehan, Speier and 
     members of the Task Force for the opportunity to join you 
     today. I'd like to thank this Task Force for your dedication 
     to ending sexual violence in all aspects of our society. For 
     the last six months, I've had the honor to serve as the 
     Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. 
     Department of Education. We at the Department are dedicated 
     to the mission of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to ensure 
     equal access to education and to promote educational 
     excellence throughout the nation through vigorous enforcement 
     of civil rights.

[[Page E1462]]

       Like too many of us, I bring with me to this work personal 
     experiences surviving sexual violence. Being raped at age 
     twenty jeopardized the trajectory of my life and nearly 
     prevented me from graduating law school. It took years to try 
     and shake the remnants of shame, humiliation, and pain that 
     sexual assault inflicted. In my work at OCR, I've been deeply 
     moved by talking and working with students and their 
     advocates, hearing story after story of how their educations 
     have been derailed and their lives imperiled by sexual 
     violence. All students in our nation's schools have the right 
     to feel safe and secure at school. All students should know 
     that their school fosters an environment that decreases the 
     risk that any student will suffer sexual harassment or 
     assault. All students have a right to expect their school to 
     respond promptly and fairly to incidents of sexual violence.
       At OCR we are charged by Congress, among other things, with 
     the critical responsibility for enforcing Title IX, which 
     prohibits sex discrimination by any school receiving federal 
     funds. It's our duty to enforce legal requirements concerning 
     how a school must respond to incidents of sexual violence. 
     OCR investigates and resolves complaints over how schools 
     respond to sexual violence, resulting in changes to schools' 
     policies and procedures to better ensure that schools provide 
     the ``prompt and equitable'' response to sexual harassment 
     and violence that federal regulations require. Our role as an 
     enforcement agency is crucial. We can and will continue to 
     fulfill that role.
       OCR currently has 353 sexual violence cases open with 
     colleges and universities, and 149 cases open with K through 
     12 school districts. Twenty-five percent of the higher 
     education sexual violence complaints, and twenty-eight 
     percent of the K through 12 cases resulted from complaints 
     filed during the current Administration. We believe this 
     continued influx of complaints reflects an improving culture 
     where survivors feel supported coming forward both to their 
     schools and to OCR. At the same time, the high number of 
     sexual violence complaints shows that too many students are 
     not yet experiencing school-level procedures that are prompt 
     and equitable. The Department therefore recently issued 
     interim guidance to encourage schools to ensure their 
     procedures are both supportive to survivors and fair to all 
     involved parties. The Department will undergo a transparent 
     notice-and-comment rulemaking process to solicit perspectives 
     from all stakeholders to ensure that Title IX regulations 
     result in school procedures that best serve Title IX's 
     critical purpose.
       It is helpful that this Task Force called this Roundtable 
     together to discuss promoting healthy relationships in K 
     through 12 schools. One of themes I hear over and over is 
     that by the time many young people arrive at college, their 
     approach to interpersonal relations and their basic 
     understanding (or lack of understanding) of what it means to 
     respect themselves and each other has already been formed 
     throughout their K through 12 years. Waiting to address these 
     interpersonal issues until college is problematic.
       I am grateful for the opportunity to share with you the 
     work being done at the Office for Civil Rights, and look 
     forward to continuing this dialogue with this Task Force.

                          ____________________