NEW YORK CITY (January 9, 2019) – It is with great sadness that Legal Momentum mourns the passing of Bernice “Bunny” Sandler, the “Godmother of Title IX.” As the New York Times reports, Ms. Sandler died on Saturday at age 90, and was instrumental in the “development, passage, and implementation” of the critical Title IX in 1972.
campus sexual assault
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Today, November 16, 2018, the U.S. Department of Education took another step towards sweeping campus sexual assault and harassment under the rug. The proposed regulations, released this morning and accessible here, would weaken the protections of the 46-year old "Title IX" which exists to ensure every student has access to a safe and equal education.
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This morning, the U.S. Department of Education withdrew its 2011 guidance on responding to sexual violence in schools and replaced it with interim guidance that is less protective for survivors. It is especially troubling that this new guidance was issued just days after the Department of Education received thousands of comments urging it to uphold the 2011 guidance and its protections for student victims of sexual violence.
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Sexual assault is prevalent in schools—both on college campuses and in K-12 schools. Here are 10 things that all students and parents should know as the school year begins:
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Yesterday Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that the Department of Education will commence a “notice and comment” process to formulate guidance regarding schools’ responsibilities in handling sexual harassment and sexual violence and made clear her intention to replace the Obama Administration-era 2011 guidance which has provided protection to sexual assault survivors and clarity for schools to respond to incidents of sexual harassment and violence.
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Lynn Hecht Schafran, senior vice president of Legal Momentum, a women’s rights group in New York, argued that the problem is rooted in stereotypes and myths about sexual assault. She cited several famous quotes and reports, from 1904 to the present, which questioned the validity of women’s rape claims.
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In an interview on July 12, Candice Jackson, the acting head of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), said that the overwhelming majority of Title IX complaints did not warrant investigation.
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We are committed to ensuring that all girls are free from gender violence and sexual assault, and to eliminating injustice in our justice system.Legal Momentum is helping to lead the national discussion on the culture of complacency surrounding rape and campus sexual assault. Lynn Hecht Schafran, who directs Legal Momentum’s National Judicial Education Program, spoke on NPR’s “The Takeaway” on June 7 about the slap-on-the-wrist sentence given to the Stanford University athlete and rapist Brock Turner.
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The six-month sentence imposed on a Stanford student athlete found guilty in a widely publicized rape case has instigated widespread public outrage. In this segment on NPR's The Takeaway, Legal Momentum's Senior Vice President and Director of the National Judicial Education Program (NJEP) Lynn Hecht Schafran discusses the case and the issues involved with host John Hockenberry. NJEP has been educating judges and other court professionals about the realities sexual assault and domestic violence, and their intersection, since 1980.
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Esta guía proporciona una descripción general de las opciones disponibles para los estudiantes víctimas de agresión sexual perpetrados por un compañero de estudios u otro afiliado universitario, incluidos los derechos del Título IX.
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In recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we next discuss the intersection of poverty and domestic violence with Lisalyn Jacobs of Legal Momentum, an organization dedicated to ensuring economic and personal security for women and girls, and Dana Bolger of Know Your IX, a national survivor-run, student-driven campaign to end campus sexual violence. (Minutes 15:00-45:00 of the 1-hour episode)
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Legal Momentum Board Vice Chair, Stanford Professor of Law Deborah L. Rhode, is quoted in this interesting piece on the decades-old intellectual debate simmering beneath the current conversation over sexual assault on campus.