New Legislation Calls for Campus-Wide Education on Issues of Sexual Violence

Assembly Bill 1088, recently signed into law, requires that California colleges provide educational and preventive information about sexual violence to all students. The bill is based on recommendations from an April 2005 report of the California Campus Sexual Assault Task Force. AB 1088 requires the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges and the Trustees of the California State University, and requests the Regents of the University of California to, in collaboration with campus-based and community-based victim advocacy organizations, provide educational and preventive information about sexual violence to students as part of the established campus orientation programs (previously the bill specified that this education should be provided to all incoming students). For campuses with existing programs, this information, as well as sexual harassment information required under subdivision (e) of Sec. 66281.5 of the Education Code (pasted below), is to be provided to students during regular orientation for incoming students. The bill requires all the CSU and CCC campuses, and requests each UC campus to post sexual violence prevention and education information on its campus website - earlier versions of the bill would have required only those public postsecondary institutions without existing on-campus orientation programs do so.

The bill specifies information what should be included in the educational and preventive information provided during orientation, or online for those campuses without existing orientation programs. It would require the CSU and CCC campuses, and requests UC campuses, to adopt policies to encourage students to report campus crimes involving sexual violence, and develop and adopt regulations setting forth procedures for implementing the bill on each of the campuses in their respective segments. Finally, the bill urges campuses to adopt policies regarding campus measures to eliminate barriers for victims of sexual assault to come forward to report the crime, and to advise students of those policies. Policies may include but would not be limited to, exempting the victim from campus sanctions for being in violation of campus policies, including alcohol and substance abuse policies or other campus policies, at the time of the incident.

The bill goes into effect beginning January 1, 2006. While UC Irvine is acting largely in compliance with the bill at the present time, Campus Assault Resources and Education (CARE), in coordination with community-based victim advocacy organizations, is working to ensure that the campus is providing services in each of the areas identified by AB1088 and is committed to providing the highest quality of preventive information to the students at UCI.

To access the bill directly, please visit the following URL:
http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/asm/ab_1051-1100/ab_1088_bill_20051007_chaptered.pdf