partnership with the fbi. in addition from our office of program compliance conducts about 300 program reviews each year. most of those focus on financial aid compliance matters but we have added an act in drug-free schools and components to each of those views and we oversee the work of those teams do on these matters to ensure consistency across the country. .. and we conduct assessments of major -- to determine if institutions have complied with the clery act in response to those incidents. now, i would like to share with you a little bit of information about the recent work we have done to implement the violence against women act reauthorization components of the clery act. as you know, last week the department published proposed regulations that will fully implement the changes made to

the clery act. i can tell you in my 17 plus years in this agency, i have never been more impressed or proud of a role making effort. work began on our implementation strategy after the passage and from the very beginning we have focused on reaching out to the people who are most affected by campus sexual assault and to top exrts in fie who >> in may and june of last year the department held public hearings where we heard from students and advocates and institutional officials on a range of campus crime topics including the proper role of law enforcement and campus sexual assault investigations and the need to find a balance between transparency and confidentiality. and the fall of 2013 we conducted our sessions with student groups, and campus safety advocates, campus law enforcement and other stakeholders to develop our understanding of their concerns andrstanding of their concerns and to help directly and to hear directly from them about how the law should be implemented.

we built relationships with colleagues across the government and higher education so that our rule-making effort and enforcement program could benefit from their expertise. from january through march of this year, we brought together 28 negotiators including one who will be on your next panel, representing a broad range of experience, interests, and perspectives including campus law enforcement professionals, victim advocates, school attorneys, title nine coordinators and most importantly our students themselves for three negotiating sessions. after careful consideration and extensive discussion, the committee reached consensus on proposed regulatory language on april 1st, this is a truly great accomplishment. while we always strive to reach consensus during our negotiated rule-making sessions, it is often difficult to do so with so many competing interests and perspectives represented. after reviewing and considering the public comments we receive on the proposed rule, we planned to issue final regulations by november 1st of this year. the department is confident that

the new providings will provide powerful tools to prevent incidents of campus sexual assault, dating and domestic violence and stalking. and to more effectively respond when these crimes do occur. these changes will also ensure a fair and more orderly path for survivors and their advocates to seek redress and ensure better access to the act daigs accommod services to which survivors are entitled. it is my belief that this hard work and the contributions of the white house task force to prevent students from sexual assault on which the assistant secretary and i both serve will result in meaningful and lasting change. in closing, i want to reiterate that we look forward to continuing our collaboration with this committee, with our institutional officials and our students in pursuit of our collective goal to put an end to campus sexual assault. thank you, and i would be happy to take your questions. >> thank you, both, very much,

for your statements. we will now turn to a round of five-minute questions. miss lhamon, about title nine and enforcement mechanisms for title nine, that basically terminating all federal funding for an institution, i believe if i remember right in reading your statement, you say that's never been used. >> it has never been used in a institution of higher education. it has been used with school districts. >> but not an institution. for this kind of an incident. >> we have not had to actually withhold federal funds from a college or university. if i may, just last april, we have i think the best example of how well that tool is working for us. tufts university after they entered into a resolution agreement with us purported to revoke that agreement and i sent them a letter telling them they were in breach of the agreement and telling them they had 60 days to cure or we would begin the process to revoke federal

funds. within two weeks tufts university came back into compliance and is part of -- not in compliance with title nine, but in compliance with the resolution agreement itself. so the threat of withholding federal funds is a very significant enforcement tool for us, one of the reasons we have been able to see our institutions -- >> you've given me one example, but your statement says it never has been used. >> it's never been used that we had to withhold the funds. it has been used as an incentive for the institutions to be be able to -- >> what we call a nuclear option around here. >> well, it is a pretty good nuclear option. my concern would be not having the nuclear option. >> i'm not certain it is a good option. maybe something you have in the backgrou background, but if you don't have other options you can use, by diverting funds, for example, in other words, saying okay, part of your title four money, because of this violation now, some of those funds have to be diverted to a campus based program for prevention and

information and support activities for students. >> so with respect, senator harken, i think we have that opportunity as part of the resolution agreements, we do enter into agreements with institutions that they change their practices which have costs associated with them. the institutions have to have council who -- >> who have the authority to divert funds. >> not to divert funds, but the authority to direct them to take steps that have to use funds and that are costly. >> but you don't have the authority to tell them, no, you got to direct funds for that? >> well, i think that's a semantic difference. the schools, when they have to take steps that cost money, they do divert funds toward that practice. and those practices include, for example, paying damages to complainants who have come forward, they include retaining additional staff who have to focus on a particular project and report to us about it, they include creating climate surveys and conducting them on their campus, they include taking steps to train students that cost money and train staff that costs money, that's a diversion of funds. that's very significant for campuses. and in my 17 years as a civil

rights litigator before i came to this administration, what i did was to use what is a nuclear option, which is to say there would be a significant -- >> are you saying you don't need any more authority or anything else from this committee or from the congress to carry out your oversight and your ability to sanction, to redirect funds, to -- at any of these institutions? you don't need anything else from us? you have all the authority you need? >> i think i have all the authority i need. it is not my view we lack a tool that is meaningful for us. >> that's amazing to me. >> and it is very satisfactory for me. >> you have all the tools you need. >> i think we have the enforcement tool we need. >> something is not working out there. i'm sorry. some things are not working. even you in your testimony said you've got through your investigations, we know colleges and ufrs are niversities are

retaliating, delaying investigations for months or longer, delaying service and support to survivors when their investigations are pending or providing adequate relief. you're saying this is what is happening out there. >> those are very, very significant concerns and those are thins we want to see changed on campus all over the country, anywhere they happen. and i think that we have been able to enter into robust agreements that are taking those steps. i would be delighted to work with you and your staff on this as we go forward. it is important to us we make sure all our students are safe and i think we're moving in that direction. >> well, maybe i'm not hearing this right, but i guess what you're saying is nothing more needs to be done on our end. you've got all the authority you need to take care of this. >> i apologize if i even suggested that were true. i would love to identify ways we could work to the. my view is that the importance of the threat of withholding federal funds is something that should not be undermined and

that that is something that has been a very effective tool for us. i think we should be clear that is so, and there may well be more things we can do and i would welcome them to add to the arsenal because i think it is critically important we deliver for all kids. >> mr. moore, my time is running out. one second left, but in terms of information on the clery act, the schools are required to provide this information to the students, the general public at large. how good a job do they do of informing incoming students and their families as to what the incidents are of sexual violence on the campus? i mean, in other words, when students look at colleges, are they able to look at this? is this presented in a format they can see and compare from one college to another? what's happening? >> excuse me. thank you, senator, harkin, for the question. all institutions are required to notify perspective students and

employees about this material, what we call the annual security report and make it available upon request. most schools have put it on their websites, and it is right there when you go on to apply to a school, for a job or for enrollment. >> are you saying again that the stools are basically dong a good job of this, they're being accurate, they're being honest about reporting this to perspective students and families? >> they're doing a relatively good job of producing the reports. now, we do find significant violations at some institutions with the statistics. so i would say that there are violations out there, we know that, we find those in our cases, and where we find them we take action. we're hoping that these new requirements will give us some additional tools and require additional disclosures that will allow students to have better information about the environment that they're going

into with regard to sexual assault. >> got it. thank you very much. >> thanks, mr. chairman. miss lhamon, mr. moore, you're both in the united states department of education, right? same department? >> that's correct. >> and mr. moore is -- has just talked about regulations that you are proposing under the violence against women act amendments to the clery act. so you've gone through a public notice, you're about to go through a comment period, on these, at which institutions will have a chance to say what they think about it, anyone else will as well. is that correct? >> that's correct, senator. >> miss lhamon, you talk about something called guidance and i got here about 66 pages of guidance under title nine. now, are -- do you expect institutions to comply with your title nine guidance documents? >> we do. >> you do.

then why -- what authority do you have to do that? >> well, it is our -- >> why do you not then go through the same process of public comment and rule and regulation that the same department over here is going through under the clery act? >> well, we would if they were regulatory changes, but the -- >> why are they not regulatory changes? do you require 6,000 institutions to comply with this, correct? >> we do. >> you do. even though you're just making an edict without any chance for public comment, without any regulatory approval? how can you do that? >> i would not describe it that way. >> i would. how can you do that? why would you not go out and ask institutions and people who may have been assaulted what they think about your guidance before you apply your guidance to 22 million students on 7200 campuses? >> first, we do. we have quite a long list of conversations that we have had

in person and through letters and -- >> but you're in the same department of the united states department of education. under the clery act, he's going through a regulatory process which publishes what he's doing after stake holder meetings, after discussions, he's asking for comment, then regulation and the congress has a chance to weigh in, but you're just over there issuing your own opinions as far as i can tell, correct? >> no, that's not correct. we have gone through the regulatory process -- >> who is responsible for this? you? >> i am, yes. but that's not just my opinion. that's what the law is and it is guidance about the way the -- >> it is the law? i thought we made the law. do you make the law? >> i don't. >> then who gave you the authority to do that? >> well, with gratitude, you did, when i was confirmed. >> we told you could -- you could make the law in title nine, then why can't -- why does he go through a public notice and comment under the clery act if you don't have to? >> i do have to go through a public notice and comment period when we regulate. this is not regulatory guidance.

>> i greatly disagree with that. i greatly disagree with that. >> i hear that. >> what you're doing is writing out detailed guidance for 22 million students on 7200 campuses and it is just -- it could be your whim, your idea. we make the law. you don't make the law. w where does such a guidance authority come from? why would the same department -- how often do the two of you meet within your department? >> we nemeet -- >> how many times in the last year have you met? >> i couldn't count them, there are so many. >> did you have input in his -- in his rules that are proposed to be ruled? >> yes, a member of my team has been part of the notice and comment process. >> i'm very concerned about that

the arbitrariness of an individual and department saying what the law is when i thought we were supposed to do that. i understand that your two offices signed a formalized agreement to better handal title nine and clery act complaints and to share information. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and is that because in the past you've really failed to coordinate and create the'd a good deal of confusion on college campuses about how to coordinate the responsibilities for dealing with sexual assault is a look up at title nine and look up at the clery act? >> i wouldn't describe it that way. i think there is room for growth for us an i'm pleased with the collaboration that my office and the federal student aid office have been able to enter into and effectuate for students. i think it has been working extremely well. >> what kind of formal procedures did you have to discuss your guidance with institutional officers who have to comply with your guidance?

how many meetings did you have with institutional officers around the country? >> well, i don't have the number off the top of my head, it took about three years to prepare that question and answer document that followed the 2011 guidance and in those three years we had many, many meetings with college and university officials, with associations of college and university officials, with student activists, with survivor organizations, with title nine coordinators, we had just a tremendous number of actual in person meetings, telephone conversations, letters that came to us, asking questions, telling us what more we need. it was a long process that involved many stake holders with many different opinions so that we could give them greater guidance and clarity about the ways we enforce. >> my time is up. i would say to my colleagues here, i think we should carefully consider not just in this case, but in other cases, fda or anything else, what the differences between the law and

threw throu through regulation, proposed by the department of education and the growing business of issuing guidance where there is no opportunity for the kind of public comment and approval that the regulatory procedure has. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator alexander. i have senator murray, senator warren, senator hagan, casey, baldwin, murphy and whitehouse. senator murray. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i appreciate you holding this important hearing. the department of education investigates allegations of title nine and clery act violations. and earlier this spring listed 55 colleges including washington state university under investigation for title nine violations. what are some of the best practices in the field that universities can take to proactively prevent sexual assault? >> thank you, senator murray. among the best practices that we hope to see is the conduct of a climate survey as a way of

identifying how students feel, how a faculty feel about safety at campuses as a way of identifying whether the campus message has been received by the students and the community at that campus about where to go, what is tolerated what is not tolerated, whom to complain to, if necessary, and whether there is a feeling of safety on the campus so that schools can respond. we think a climate survey is a really important first step. in addition, it is critically important to communicate about sexual violence on the campus, about sexually hostile environments so the entire school community is clear about that is and is not acceptable on campus. it is important to let students know who title nine coordinator is, where to go, if the students need help, how to complain and who are resources on the campus. and finally, it is extremely important to have a transparent and fully functional investigative process where students need to complain so that interim relief is available to students when they need it so

students can be clear that effective and appropriate steps are taken to address sexual violence when it occurs. >> very good. i appreciate that response. i have sponsored along with senator baldwin and many other members of this committee the legislation called the tyler clementi anti-harassment act that requires colleges and universities to prohibit harassment and establishes within the department of education a grant program to support campus anti-harassment programs. wouldn't such a grant program be be helpful in addressing campus sexual assault? >> i, as part of my role and representing secretary duncan in the white house task force, i visited campuses around the country as part of the violence against -- the office of violence against women in the department of justice grant program to see what kinds of successes they're able to see from the grants they're able to deliver. i have to confess i have real

jealousy that they're able to give those grants and to ask for changes they know need to be made and for research about best practices that can come from the delivery of the grants. it would be meaningful for us. >> thank you very much. mr. moore. >> thank you for your work on that initiative. what we find with the clery act is, it is one of the reasons why we are very excited about the work that the task force and the work ocr is doing with regard to climate survey. you have to understand with the campus climate and culture is before you can address it effectively. one of the other tools in the new requirements is we require schools to have primary prevention programs. it only works in a proactive way if you understand what is going on your campus. if you have problems in an rotc program and the athletic department and fraternities and sororities, you have to make sure that training is designed to address all of those issues. it, to get to these issues of

culture and climate and tradition that are problematic on campuses, we have to get an understanding of harassment, hazing, several other factors, if we're going to be effective. so thank you very much. >> perfect, thank you very much to both of you. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> senator warren. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. you know, the topics of this hearing couldn't be more important. our young people go to college to learn about the world to start their careers while they're working hard to build their futures. they should at the least feel safe on campus. and they should feel confident that if they are victims of crimes, the people around them will respond quickly. and with respect and compassion. i know now that for 20 years the federal government has been collecting and disclosing data on alleged campus crimes under the clery act. mr. moore, you just noted that last week the department of education released draft rules

on expanded data collection. now, data can be a powerful tool in helping us understand the problems we face. and possible solutions. i want to ask about how the data are used. so mr. moore, can you tell me about what kind of analysis the department of education conducts with clery act data and take it as a whole what these analyses have shown? >> thank you, senator, for the question. what we do to validate the information is we go out to schools and we conduct assessments, compliance assessments, and when we do that, we will look at substantial samples of incident reports to see if they were classified the right way. >> so just so i'm following you here, you say you go out and validate you're getting good data that comes in, and so you make an independent on the ground evaluation, you look through what kinds of records?

>> police incident reports, student conduct records, sometimes hr records, sometimes you have to go into athletic departments or fraternity offices where -- anybody who can adjudicate discipline or investigate issues of discipline we have to look at records from those offices. >> so you look at the records, you look at what was reported and see how good the match is. and then you know about the quality of your data. and i presume if the match is not good, then you have an ongoing relationship then with the school about how it is they need to improve their data reporting. >> there are several thing we do. there is technical assistance and corrective action component. if what we find constitutes a substantial misrepresentation, they could be subject it administrative action, usually a fine. >> you try to get everyone in compliance in terms of reporting the information. we have this information, we have been collecting information for 20 years now, presumably the

quality of the information has gotten better over time and more complete over time. what do you do with the information? >> we do collect that information from all of our institutions and we do analyses of it to try to track trends in campus crime. >> you look for trend lines on a school by school basis? >> sometimes by school by school basis, but also across sectors of education. we'll often look at community colleges, and look for trends there. obviously the crime environment is very different at a community college. it doesn't have dormitories versus let's say for profit educational institutions that don't have the big sports programs, big fraternity programs, and we'll look at our traditional institutions that are likely to have more types of crime occurring. >> and do you make those -- all of those reports public when you do these analyses? are you putting them out there, making them public? >> the statistics are publishly

available. the analysis is not. >> so you do the analysis, what happens with it? >> basically we use it to formulate our compliance program. we use it in the conduct of our cases, and it also gets used in terms of possible proposals for changes to the rules. >> actually, then, let me switch it over to miss lhamon. do you use these data as part of your enforcement strategies and designing your enforcement strategys? >> we do. and we use it in two ways. one is that jim and i work together when we collectively have concerns, based on the analysis that jim and his staff have done. he may refer something to us so that we can begin to investigate. we look at the data itself to decide whether we should do a proactive investigation of our own. and it may be counterintuitive, but sometimes low data from a school is a reason for us to go in and investigate, because it seems like they may not be

reporting appropriately. we use the data for where we should look at a school and when we have a complaint to us, what we should do when we evaluate that complaint. >> let helpful in making your decisions about where you've got compliance and you don't that you feel like ought to be there? >> sure. one is coming we will access that i would like to have we don't have now. i'll get to the one we don't have. i have a civil rights data i conduct for k-12 around the country. it gives me health for those schools that is enormously helpful. i don't have that same data access at the higher education level. it would be terrifically useful in this area for civil rights compliance in higher education. it would be very helpful to have it. >> i've run out of time. i very much appreciate this. i do think we have to be very

careful about the quality of our data. i'm very glad to hear about this part of it, how we use this data, analyze problems and collect more and better data if we need it. the focus on prevention needs to be far more intense than it has been. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator warren. senator casey. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i appreciate you having this hearing. thank our witnesses for your work on this. i have to commend the work you've done, the white house, vice president biden. this problem has persisted for generations. we are finally getting to the point where we are reacting appropriately to it. we should react with a sense of outrage. this is the ultimate betrayal of

a woman who attends college. we all say we want people to get higher education. we all say it's important, then we send them to institutions where, many institutions, not every but many, don't seem to take this issue very seriously. it should be under the category of a zero tolerance effort. the perpetrator should be labeled with words like "coward" and "monster" and whatever we can come up with. i know that upsets people, but that's the way i see it. it should be zero tolerance. institutions should be doing a lot of things already without any laws, without any regulations. you have to send the message more directly. i'm glad we made great progress when we reauthorized the violence against women act. one of the component parts was my campus save law, which you

are now working on implementing. we're grateful for that. i'm grateful for senator leahy and his work to get that done. we made progress with campus save. got to get it implemented, but i'm sure there will be gaps and other matters that weren't addressed. we've made progress and have a long way to go. in light of the campus save elements, which you've spoken to a little bit in your testimony on page four, talking about clarifying definitions, keeping data, having better prevention strategies, getting bystanders involved. too many students who don't want to do what they should be doing to help when they're bystanders. a whole range of changes will take place. one thing i wanted to ask in particular was now that you're in the process of making sure these provisions get implemented, how long will

schools have to come into compliance? >> thank you, senator, for the question. thank you for your work on the campus save act. as a fellow pennsylvanian, you make me very proud, sir. >> thank you. what we have been very clear, and we are going to issue additional guidance in coming days, to reiterate that institutions have to make their best good-faith effort in this first year. okay? the best good faith effort to comply with the statutory language since we don't have final regulations. so when institutions issue their annual security reports in october of this year, what we are going to be looking to see is indicia schools are looking for ways to implement these requirements, then have a full year to issue additional guidance to clarify problems. with all the work we've done on

this, you can guarantee there is a piece here or there we didn't consider and we will have to go back and address that in our guidance. we are going to have a complete rewrite of our handbook for clery act compliance. that will be available to the schools. we are working on other training materials available free of charge to all our schools. by the time we get to october 1, 2015, everybody should be on the same page. >> that's great. want to ask you as well in the remaining time i have, on the question about the education of institutions. look, i realize institutions tend to feel they're overwhelmed with rules, but this is one they've got to comply with. tell me about how currently or

upon implementation the department will help going forward. >> we increased our presence at training conferences. we have increased both the number of guidance documents we put out and the quality of those documents. we've brought them down to a level that will be, that should be easy for all institutions to implement. that's one of the issues with the clery act. you have 6,000 schools, some of them with 25 students and maybe three or four employees and a strip mall running a cosmetology school. the clery act requires schools to take that law and implement it at their schools. they need an implementation plan. in this new guidance, we want to give them best practice information that will allow them to develop that implementation

plan in an appropriate way at the very little school and the large school. >> i appreciate that. i'm over time. thanks for your work. >> thank you, senator casey. senator baldwin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. earlier in this session of congress, we took some incredibly important, and i would argue very long overdue steps towards combatting the epidemic of sexual assault in the military. in examining the problem of sexual assault in the military and the steps that were taken, i discovered there was no specific focus on looking into and collecting data on sexual violence in our reserve officer training corps programs on our nation's college campuses. i view rotc programs as sort of standing at the intersection

between this issue and crisis of sexual assault in the military and sexual assault on campus. nearly 40% of all new officers commissioned into the army and navy combined since 2012 have come out of rotc programs at our nation's campuses. i really think it's critical we understand how the issue of sexual assault is being addressed among the commissioning source of so many of our military's future leaders. that's why i earlier this session asked the department of defense and the white house to ensure that data from rotc programs contributed to the full understanding of the problem of sexual violence at our colleges and universities. so i was disappointed that the report by the white house task force to protect students from sexual assault that was released

in april didn't address these issues, nor does, as i understand it, any department of education title 9 guidance speak specifically how rotc codes of conducts should address this issue. while i understand instances of sexual assaults against students who are in rotc programs should be investigated and reported in the same manner as other campus sexual assaults, i guess i could, i guess my questions are, have you undertaken any formal or informal collaboration with the defense department on the issue of sexual violence in rotc programs on college campuses? can you tell me why the department of education has not apparently spoken specifically to this aspect? i would ask both of to you

respond. >> thank you. i want to say sorry to have disappointed in you the task force so far and hope we can redeem ourselves going forward. >> it's a focused criticism. >> fair point. thank you. two. i want to be sure i say our goal, especially in the most recently frequently asked questions document, was to make very, very clear there is no student on a college campus whom the college title 9 obligations do not extend to. it was our goal not to take away from that overarching message that title 9 obligations extend to every student of every type on every campus so that the schools will make them all safe. i had some worry if we disaggregated any particular type of student we would undermine that message. i would be very pleased to work with your office as we go forward about ways to make sure we are sending a clear message also about the rotc students. i want to assure you we have been in our investigative space

working specifically with rotc students. one complaint in the k-12 space, a young woman came with a complaint she had not been able to be promoted to commander in her army rotc. we investigated and found harrowing facts about the way she was being treated and the rotc lead talked to her in sexually discriminatory ways in that school. her mom thanked us at the end of the resolution to let us know she was the first young one ever to be promoted on that camp. we are working in this space. we are trying to send a clear message. specifically to your question about the ways we work with the armed force defense, we work hand in hand with them. the president directed us and reminded us repeatedly he expects an annual report with new progress each time going forward. there will be further steps. >> thank you. >> senator baldwin, i want to thank you for your work on the defense aspect of this. i think one of my take aways

from the fine work you all did was that you have to have meaningful punishments for sexual assaults if you are going to change the culture. one thing i can assure you of is in our work we look at institutions across the board. we are looking at crimes that occur on campus regardless of where they occur. one of the important changes under the vawa amendments again is we are going to start to look more closely at issues of culture, climate, damaging traditions. there's lots of that in the military we see. especially along the lines of hazing. when you create that culture where these things are allowed to occur, next thing you get is sexual assault happening in high number without any proper law enforcement response or disciplinary response. this is something we would definitely like to work with you on going forward. and to also look beyond rotc to the very enduring problems we see in athletic programs,

fraternities and sororities and other organizations on campus. >> thank you, senator baldwin. senator murphy. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. thank you both for being here. i wanted to follow up on question senator murray asked. she was asking about best practices with respect to prevention. i wanted to turn to the investigation and disciplinary process in a publicized case, columbia. students feel a second victimization when they go through the process of reporting and testifying to the abuse. she tells the story of being asked some incredibly insensitive and irrelevant question questions in the process of trying to gain justice.

speaks broader about an uninformed, undertrained set of investigators and people overseeing the disciplinary process. what have we learned what happened at columbia and what are the recommendations you are making to schools so we don't have a reputation of revictimization happening when someone has the courage to report and bring it to a disciplinary board. >> thank you. it's critically important. we've seen all too often the investigative process at a school can be so invasive, so unpleasant and so ill-handled students elect not to use it which sends its own message that it's just not worth coming forward and not safe. that's one of the key things we want to see campuses thing that they need to be sending a message to students that the process will be fair, that it will be effective and will be impartial. it will not involve inappropriate questions about students' backgrounds. it will not further victimize people who have the courage to come forward.

we try to put information specifically about the conduct of investigations in the frequently asked questions documents we released this spring. we are making our investigation results more public so schools can see the kinds of things we find unacceptable when we investigate and going back to the example that specific set of concerns is exactly what we saw with tufts and virginia military institute. it's exactly what we saw with cindy, frankly. we have been able to jai-lai what we thought was wrong with the investigations conducted and highlight what the universities agreed they will do to change that going forward and monitoring those changes to make sure they are lived reality for students. >> how do you monitor these processes? these happen behind closed doors. you don't get data about the kind of questions being asked, i can't imagine. how do we track whether this is getting better or worse for students other than hoping there is a handful of students who go through an experience that is

unpleasant and report it back through a chain that ends up in your hands? >> we do get to see the ways they investigate. that is a very important piece of data and it's an important component of getting to a place where we can say this school is behaving in an appropriate manner we do not keep monitoring. we will see the ways that the schools investigate what it is they do, the degree which they comply with their policy, which says they can't do those things going forward and the degree which they satisfy their obligation for the students. >> senator murphy, this is a very key point. whatever number you look at, whether it's 1-5, 1-6, if it's something else, what we know is campus sexual assaults are vastly underreported. one of the main reasons is there is not a good part for redress. the criminal justice system is

often revictimizing and these campus judicial systems, if they are not well formulated can be even more so. one of the things we did in these new rules is we tried to fix some of the procedural elements around these hearings. for instance, now there is a notice requirement. there have been students who have shown with documentation they were given an hour, two hours to prepare for a hearing or evidence that is supposed to be provided to both sides was given as they entered the door, no opportunity to review it. both the accused and accusers now have an advocate with them, an adviser of choice. one thing that maybe valuable in the future is a relevancy rule in these hearings. having reviewed documents for many of these hearings, the kinds of information you can't

call it evidence, that is submitted and considered by these boards of undertrained people very often is frightening. i have seen things where people take things off facebook and have it submitted as evidence as if it's a dispositive of something. this is something we might want to look at going forward. a basic relevancy rule that says only relevant evidence should be admitted and relevant evidence should be excluded if it has a substantial risk of unfair prejudice. >> makes sense to me. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator whitehouse. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you both for being here. it strikes me that the relationship between the college or university and the local police department is very important. and missteps with that relationship are fraught with danger both for the alleged

victim and the alleged perpetrator, including loss of opportunity to gather necessary evidence if the police aren't brought in quickly enough. interference by the university off college in an ongoing criminal investigation. there is a public safety value to making sure these offenses are reported. there is a potential liability to university if it keeps one student's confidence and that causes another student to be attacked by the individual about whom they had not brought that information to the police. that is a doctrine so long standing that it's a common law crime to commit concealment of a felo felony. of course, investigation is not a court expertise of a college or university that we expect.

my sense is that the hand-off between the university and local law enforcement authorities is not very well managed in a lot of places. and there are very simple things that could make a big difference. it's probably a very big difference if the victim is or the alleged victim is in having her conversation with the university saying you should consider reporting this to the police and they're downtown. we may give you cab fare. as a student, you are going off into the unknown, waiting in line in the police station, not knowing who you are going to talk to, versus we have a very good relationship with the local police department. officer jones is right outside. she works all these cases. we know her very well. you really should let her into this conversation because you'll be making choices now that will

really change the way you can pursue this down the road if you don't have her or him in this conversation. that seems to be an area that isn't getting the attention it deserves. my question is, have you identified colleges and universities, which you consider to be a model relationship with their local police department in terms of making sure that that hand-off between the two isn't mishandled from the perspective of the students have their interest involved? >> yes, we have. i want to say how strongly i agree with you about the concern. from some of the perspectives you raise but also the colleges and university staff i heard from where they say there isn't even a local law enforcement agency nearby that has the capacity to take a rape kit as one example. there is certainly the dimension

of the problem you described which the connect isn't good between the school and place they could go. there is the disconnect where there isn't a place to send students in the first place. >> what are your model relationships between a university and a police department? i don't expect you have them at the top of your head here. i would like as a response for the record, to have each of you identify where you think model relationships exist between campuses and the local police department, and what you think the elements are in that relationship that make them a model relationship. i was a u.s. attorney, i was attorney general. i come at this from a different perspective. it's a little bit alarming to hear how much completely untrained, completely inexperienced, completely unauthorized people are meddling

around in a manner in which a felony has been alleged. >> yes. >> if you don't bring people in who have the proper authority, know what they are doing and who have the process in place to make sure that evidence is gathered, which degrades rapidly in some cases, then you've created a real problem. similarly, if you forced the college to go and maintain an investigation and produce a report at a time when the police are saying, for god's sake, we are investigating this, knock it off. we are trying to interview these witnesses. we can't have you running around interviewing witnesses. this is interference with a criminal investigation. that seems to be a pretty serious challenge, as well. >> so if i could, jim and i have been working together and also with the department of justice to create a model and memorandum of understanding that colleges and universities could have together with local police departments. that we hope will be out in the world in a few weeks. we should be able to give you

those points. >> my time is up. i should ask you to follow up for the record. >> okay. >> i know our police departments and universities would welcome that. >> thank you. >> i know we want to get to the second panel. i want to clear up a misunderstanding i had with ms. lhamon here. the next panel there will be a witness. i read it last night she said the disproportionate and practical nation of the only sanctions are efforts at an enforcement. ocr should be given the latitude to design smaller and flexible sanctions appropriate to the violations. not everything rises to the level, i would say to my friend, to the level of a felony. additionally, rather than simply imposing fines of varying sizes, ocr should be empowered to impose signs to forced budgetary reallocations to push goals into compliance. when we were talking earlier, i think you may have thought i was

trying to say we should take away the nuclear option. that's fine. if that's the only thing you have in your arsenal then it makes it very hard to respond to incidents that may not rise to the level of a felony, but still are egregious actions on the part of one student to another student. i just wanted to make that clear. i thought you were basically saying, no, you don't need anything other than the nuclear option. >> so if i may, i just want to say i think it is really useful to us to have the nuclear option in our back pocket. i didn't hear you saying you would take it away. i have a worry if we have a lesser tool, it would make it harder for colleges and universities to expect us to use the nuclear option and that is a very variable tool for us. >> i see now -- secondly. campus. again i say to senator

whitehouse, i've been involved in some of the past when my wife was a prosecuting attorney. a lot of times students who are a victim of this just need to know what to do. they need to have somebody they can trust to go to. like an ombudsman on a campus that has been trained, that has the qualifications to at least initially be on the side of the person who has been victimized to give them the kind of information about where they should go. how many colleges have that kind of ombudsman? do they have them or not? >> title nine coordinator can function as an ombudsman. every campus is supposed to have a title nine coordinator. >> the title nine person is sort of like in the hierarchy of the school. that's the problem. that's the problem. >> yes. >> need somebody not in that hierarchy of the school. okay.

got that. are military academies exempt from title nine? i'm told they are. i just found that out. do we know? senator warren, do you know? >> i think the answer is yes. >> i'm talking about our military. i'm informed they are exempt from title nine. well, no one seems to know. >> does that mean they're not reporting data either? >> senator, the military academies are exempt from the clear yet. >> you collect no data from the military academies? >> they don't have to report. >> it's something that probably should be corrected, but because of the way the title 4 financial aid rules -- >> you think? >> the rules say if you don't receive funds from our programs, you don't have to comply with the clery act. the clery act simply doesn't apply to those institutions.

>> wait a second. i thought that applied to any school that received federal funds. >> not the clery act because it's only title 4. >> on that topic, looking into this and i asked the earlier question about the rotc programs, when the congress did take sort of some new steps on combatting military sexual assaults in the defense authorization budget, we did include the military academies under those provisions. yet rotc was not included, which is why i feel like we have to focus some attention on the training of our many of our future officers. you're accurate about the title nine. >> so they don't have to report under the clery act like other colleges.

i didn't know that. thank you very much, panel. we appreciate it very much. we'll call our second panel. we have votes at 11:45. emily renda, john kelly and jane stapleton. >> mr. chairman, while the next panel is assembling itself, let me say that i understand that there are circumstances that come through the sexual assault reporting mechanism at these universities that amount to less than criminal activity. my point is that unless you have somebody in the room who understands what felony sexual assault is and an ombudsman is not nearly as expert as a prosecutor or police officer, and if the institution can't support connecting with the police department in a way that is easy and supportive for the alleged victim, then you have

real problems down the road. because by the time they do figure it out, it could easily be too late to gather the appropriate evidence. all sorts of statements have been made that fouled up criminal prosecution. you've really put the individual at risk in terms of defending her rights as a victim through the law enforcement process. >> i got that. i think we'll hear from someone on this panel that maybe a victim doesn't, they get caught up and get pushed into a felony accusation, and that takes on a life of its own. maybe that is really not what they were seeking. maybe they get over reticent to go down that pathway. >> if a person is a, presents the risk of being a serial offender, there are very good reasons why the law enforcement process goes forward even with uncooperative victim. we do it in violence against women prosecutions. the woman recants, but you

milwaukee the prosecution because of the statisticalhood of reoffending. emily renda, completed a thesis of sociology under title nine, sexual assault reporting rates. she completed resource of sexual assault reutilization. she works at the university of virginia to help with title nine compliance efforts. next mr. john kelly, rising senior at tufts university where he studies religion. he is a survivor of an intimate partner violence and rape on a college student. he is the special projects organizer for know your nine, campaigned to educate all college students about their rights under title nine. we are grateful that you are

here. then jane stapleton, a co-director of the university of new hampshire prevention innovations, research and practices for ending violence against women. as extensive experience working to end violence against women in college and university settings, she is a lead developer and evaluator of the know your power by standard social marketing campaign and trains colleges, universities and community organizations how to facilitate and implement comprehensive strategies to end this kind of violence. with that, your statements are in the record in their entirety. miss renda, could you start and maybe sum up in five minutes the essence of yours? hopefully we'll have timr me >> thank you, senator harkin, and synagogues and under the members of the committee present today for the opportunity to speak. as noted my name is emily renda and i'm a recent graduate of university of virginia. in my experience as a survive and in the course of my work as an advocate and activist i've learned a great deal about the

dynamics around campus of sexual assault and i hope will be informative for the committee today. i want to let several observations i've made about the challenges survivors face and the way federal law and regulation influence a good influence those challenges. as requirements under title ix expand the mandate for prevention and education outreach it is critical we ensure colleges are providing education about here support to students. self blame and the complaint are among the primary factors that deter victims from reporting. personal failings responsibility for an attack especially when reinforced by peers undermine the survivor since it is his or her right to seek justice. one survivor i worked with did not report her gang rape until almost a year later because after the attack she confided in peers who do not believe for. who told her she was wrong about what had happened to her because those were all great guys. our friends response to a winter conference to seek help which it those five young men went unpunished and remained a threat to the other students.

education support can prevent these revictimizing responses. though the current national media spotlight has almost exclusive focus on the lack of punitive sanctions for students am responsible and sexual assault cases, we must maintain a range of the build section for colleges to employed respect there is needs and wants. .. especially where the perpetrator is known or relationship abuse. many survivors i have known were initially scared to report because they did not want to ruin his life or get him into trouble. in a case of one young woman in an abusive relationship, the dean of students was only able to convince her to take disciplinary action reassuring her the disciplinary process to get him help. that got her in the door. mandatory expulsion been the only option, she would have waited longer to report if she ever came forward at all. a range of sanctions is getting survivors in the door with respect to their agency and shifting needs. getting more survivors in the

door gives universities a better chance to be fully aware and combat hostile environments. also as title nine investigations shed light on the way cases are mishandled on to rectify that chilling effect on reporting and seeking resources from that investigation the resolution agreement should incorporate recommendations and requirements to help keep students informed and involved in the steps of the universities that are taken to rectify issues an initial public complaint. on the top-down communications approach it doesn't really rate the concerns about mistreatment as mucas much as student to stut communication about what the administration and the students are working on together. the knowledge of an opportunity for input is to reassure students the administration is transparent about the way that handles cases and will handle cases in the future. by including requirements for the working group's resolution can help address the fears raised by public so the

survivors can feel safe in the offices and administrators best suited to connect them to the resources and remedies. additionally in order to address concerns about equity team raised it may be helpful to define the requirements and procedures for hearings on campus raised by their guidance. specifically codified in some of the recommendations that may clarify concerns colleges have about how to properly adjudicate. many have strongly sanctions because to the accused student may sue the appeal to be for school. this may contribute to insufficiently sanctioning cases where a hostile environment exists. such a trick verification of how procedures ought to look based on the recommendations they hope to distinguish the campus process from criminal proceedings and job down trees between the two so the colleges have a sense of how to proceed and address the environment without fear of civil action from students. when it comes to the enforcement of title ix, the nature of the

only sanction available hinders efforts to which you spoke to before. the enforcement is more. ocr should be given the latitude to design smaller sanctions appropriate to the violation. rather than imposing the fines come ,ocr should be empowered to and forced relocations to help push schools into compliance. rather than a punitive financial sanction that we take resources away from students come a budgetary allocations to force schools to appropriate resources to improve its title ix efforts for example a sanction could mandate a school must allocate $50,000 per year for four years to fund trauma specific counseling at the student health center. finally while it may qualify in the hearing i think it's important to note while the use of title ix to address sexual assault and discrimination is an incredibly important tool in a more comprehensive approach to the issue of sexual assault would consider potential reforms to state and federal criminal law. as we improve the efforts we

wouldn't have to rely so heavily on colleges to address the sexual violence. college is maybe more if it did that addressing the violence and outside of the college context much whining fully. options of reform make it possible to better address this problem holistic late. thank you so much for the opportunity to speak and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> when i was in the 18-year-old freshman i entered into what would become an abusive relationship with another student. on the last night of my freshman year he ignored me, raped me and physically grabbed and three strained me not letting me leave his room until i told him i loved him. three months later during my first week of school for my sophomore year he raped me again. since then i've become an advocate for the rights of student survivors especially those often overlooked. in this case by community. senators i think you for giving me the opportunity to testify on

the topic of sexual assault and college campuses. i'm here today with a number of recommendations they hope to address which are outlined in my written testimony provided. first congress must give the department of education the power to levy substantial fines against schools found out of compliance with title ix. the only available currently is a full removal of federal funds, but something that would hurt the group of students that this is intended to protect. schools must be punished to signal the seriousness of the failure and prevent schools from becoming repeat offenders. in addition they can then help subsidize ocr costs for enforcement or go directly to victims of this is. at the university we recently were found out of compliance with no fines werbutno fines we. schools cannot truly be held accountable. second, congress must compel the department of education to continuously release a list of schools under investigation. without this information, components may be deprived of

information surrounding their own complaints and prospective students can't possibly make an informed decision regarding their choice of college. that's university was under investigation and i made the choice to attend without this information. when i was raped, they were still under investigation and i still didn't know. had i known i can only hope i would have chosen another school to begin with. perhaps i would have attended all the same but it's not within the purview of the department of education to deny students a opportunity to make educated decisions for themselves. i wish i had known tubbs was under investigation when i began doing for my campuses so i could have had preparation for the humiliation that i would endure at the hands of administrators that i trusted to protect me. they didn't protect me that i had no cause to suspect anything but support from them because of ocr. i was thrilled to see ocr under the leadership was recently released a list of schools currently under investigation but that must become the norm. please compel ocr to

continuously and publicly release the names of schools under investigation so that my experience can soon become an outlier. my partner didn't use physical force at first indeed he didn't use physical force until the last day of our relationship but in the weeks and months leading up heat had psychologically and emotionally abuse. it starts out as little things. a controlled move here come out to first hear committed and salt air and put down here. most starts like this with emotional and psychological abuse that they are by no means little. indeed research shows the effects are just as deleterious as any grooves or broken bone. 99% of survivors of domestic violence experience economic abuse. the department of education and rulemakers agreed we did not have the authority to expand the definition of dating and domestic violence to include emotional, psychological and academic abuse without the statute is stated so please come the state as much. policies informed expectations

and culture and expectations should not be to wait until you have a hospitalization under your belt before you can report your abuser and receive justice. my identity is not contingent on the state or territory in which i currently live and neither should my ability to receive justice. it's time for congress to standardize the definition of college is used so that they apply equally to male survivors and survivors in the greater community. the estimate of sexual assault brigade or bisexual men is 30%. for and bisexual women and is 43%. one third of same-sex relationships involve domestic violence and about one half of all people experience sexual violence in their lifetime. the queer community is staggering rates and in this level we failed to fully address this and not only perpetuates the silent queer providers but also prevents queer college students from being able to fully access their civil rights and education.

please come and make consistent definitions so that this ceases to be an issue. all students have a right to education and policies that discriminate or ignore certain identities failed to provide that right. senator harkin, senator alexander and members of the senate health committee thank you for including me in the opportunity to provide testimony. in summary, transparent, sensitive and inclusive policies are a must for institutions of higher education and for the federal government. thank you. >> thank you for being here and being so forthright in her testimony. appreciate it very much. good morning. thank you chairman harkin, ranking member alexander and committee members. my name is jane from the university of new hampshire and along with doctor sharon potter on the codirector of prevention innovation research practices for ending violence against women. it is an honor to be asked to testify before the committee on

an issue that has been an important part of both my personal and professional life for the past 30 years. prevention innovation is made up of researchers and practitioners who work together to create evaluate and disseminate evidence-based prevention and responses to sexual relationship violence and stalking. we are interested in building practitioners capacities to respond to survivors an to mease climate and incident incidents,t violence and complied with recent federal laws and mandates. we be leave that to truly and a sexual relationship violence on campus we must understand what works in prevention and response, evaluate effectiveness, document climate incidents and a readiness to change and implement evidence-based best practices. during my career i had the opportunity to witness a dramatic shift in prevention approaches. in the early days we attempted

to end the problem of sexual assault on campus by educating people about the facts and risk reduction, talking to women on how they can stay safe and asking men please don't rape. bystander intervention however is a different approach where women are not approached as victims or potential victims and men are not approach the perpetrators or potential perpetrators. instead, we utilize a community approach to prevention where everyone has a role to play in ending sexual relationship violence and stalking. together my colleagues and i have developed, evaluated and implemented by standard intervention and prevention strategies where we teach college students on the faculty, staff and administrators to safely intervene before, during and after incidents as a sexual and relationship violence and stalking. prevention innovation, evidence-based bystander intervention prevention

strategies include bringing in the bystander, and in person prevention program and know your power a bystander intervention social marketing campaign. both have been proven to reduce the acceptance can increase knowledge of the problems of sexual relationship violence and stalking and bystander behaviors that increase people's willingness to intervene before during and after and increase people's self-reported bystander behaviors. prevention strategies have been developed with considerable input from students, staff and faculty representing a diversity of backgrounds and have been adopted by college's and universities across the country and adopted for the u.s. army. several members have administered an unwanted sexual experiences study every five years at the university of new hampshire since 1988. the campuswide survey measures

the male and female undergraduate student experiences of unwanted sexual intercourse and sexual contact. in 2012 the survey inc. questions related to relationship violence and stalking and included participants from a2 new england colleges and universities. additionally my colleagues have developed and evaluated a community readiness to engage survey for campuses to measure their communities readiness to change behaviors social norms, policies and practices to prevent sexual violence and stalking. prevention innovation just launched the campus sexual relationship violence prevention consortium in an effort to prevent technical assistance to colleges and universities as they work to meet legislative requirements to reduce campus sexual relationship violence. finally prevention innovation has been asked by the white house task force to protect students from sexual assault on campus to conduct a study on

sexual assault policy education for first-year students. i am delighted to see the extent to which the u.s. department of education through title ix have prioritized campus safety not only related to sexual assault but also dating and domestic violence and stalking. when we discuss these reforms it's important to remember the multiple forms of violence not just focus on sexual assault as well as acknowledge a diversity of survivors. the recent mandates for campuses to ensure swift and effective responses to report sexual relationship violence and stalking, sensitive and confidential support services for survivors and prevention education are essential to stopping these preventable. all of the recent federal mandates will colleges and universities accountable for ensuring safety and accountability on campus. for some campuses these mandates upon work, service and policies

that they've already begun to develop and implement. many campuses however to mandatethemandates provide an oy to begin this work in ways for the first time. in thinking about how the federal law needs to be reformed and strengthened to better address these issues i suggest federal regulation provide guidance and requirements for colleges and universities to build comprehensive prevention strategies and responses that focus on a continuum of violence that include dating and domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking, conduct communitywide prevention that engages all members of the campus community including undergraduate and graduate students, staff and faculty, administrators, parents, community members, businesses and alumni. conduct regular climate settings that measure the extent of the violence and stalking.

the study results should be made public and academic journals and campus websites and they must and they can utilize uniform questions. utilize prevention strategies that are scientifically evaluated and evidence-based research informed. too many non- research-based quick solutions are propping up everywhere. for-profit companies with no subject experts are seizing the opportunity to make money off recent federal mandates. a member of the solutions to recent mandates are not research informed her evidence-based and this is problematic. we must assess the campus readiness to change. campus is full of one of the continuum of readiness to engage in prevention responses. we must create confidential support services and advocacy for survivors. survivors. campuses need to identify and advertise on campus confidential support and partner with

community-based crisis centers to provide support for survivors and evidence-based research informed prevention. most importantly, everything and everyone needs to keep survivors in the centers of all prevention response and compliance strategies. i would echo the discussion on the need for the department of education to identify a grant program focused on dating and domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. thank you very much for inviting me here and i would be war than happy to answer your questions. questions. >> thank you all we will try to do a quick round. i would just have one question because we have the votes starting at 11:45 so we have got about 15 more minutes. let me just ask you and we have any information or data on orientation, to colleges have sessions on sexual assault, all

forms of violence which you find out i it's not just sexual assat but other forms of violence. it could be stalking, it could be intimidation as mr. kelly spoke about in terms of that kind of intimidation of students. we have any data to back >> we don't have any data. the amendments actually do outline the primary prevention programs for dating and domestic violence and sexual assault and stalking that we have no data and that is what we have been asked to do a study for the white house task force on. >> when is that going to be done? stomach at the campuswide study involving seven campuses and we are conducting it in september and we will report to the white house in january. >> you were also a survivor of assault and i read your testimony last night and it

seems to me that we have a little bit of a difference here. maybe you will work this out, but you are basically advocating -- basically advocating that we have different levels of sanctions not to deter the survivortoo these were thesurvie respective solutions and survivors. that gets into a senator whitehouse and i were talking about. do all of these rise to the level of felonies but maybe the survivor doesn't want to push it that far. and i'm a little confused myse myself. i agree, you don't want to commit a perpetrator that is guilty of a felony and who may be a serial perpetrator from escaping the provisions of the

law. on the range of solutions offering to the front end and range of outcomes. that isn't to say that once a disciplinary proceeding begins they must maintain the same goals or wishes. many victims feel self blame that changes the more involvement on the school part. it allows them to act. it is entirely possible to determine the hostile environment exists regardless what the survivor once and would

be able to work with that person to say i know you didn't want to see this person expelled but we believe they pose a threat to other students as we have to take that action on the needs with that process it still allows the school to evaluate a hostile environment and make choices best for the safety of the campus as a whole. i think it is a risk mandatory reporting what is the terror that prevents the process from taking place. >> again come in the office and in the sanctions of the office of civil rights, what they can levy against institutions in finance, and form me mr. kelly

about how you might see this rather than just this big threat to take away all of your funds or we are going to go to have this person prosecuted as a criminal are there other things that we need to be looking at here and approaches especially as it pertains to the and community. community. community. >> thank you for your question, senator harkin. in the testimony that i provided, i think that's what makes the most sense is to provide the office of civil rights with numerous avenues for compliance and for the punishment of noncompliance. so if the school was found out of compliance the only option is either the removal of the federal funding or no funding at all. so there needs to be a sort of middle ground here. and so what has been happening recently is the students have been using the act more and more because they levy some kind but

they are not tied to the campus of endowment or the yearly earnings or things like that. it's just one standard to find that is set pretty low and doesn't have an affect on schools with hundreds of millions of dollars i in their endowment. so what makes the most sense is to have the fines tied to the operating budget or the schools you see those that are not affecting the small campuses. if you have a school at the university of michigan or tennessee, something like that where you have hundreds of millions of dollars if not more.

on a year-to-year basis that can be flexible and cooperate in the current resolution agreement tuesday provided by the centers. while the office of could provide a mandate $5,000 a year to fund the programs for a certain number of years as a part of that agreement, that was really kind of push the compliance in a way that is voluntary and in good faith now that i think would be it would have a lot more teeth to it. >> what do you think of that? >> i would like to see it focused on prevention as well. >> okay. i got that. >> if we are looking to stop the problems of course we want to have responses to survivors and education, but we really need to focus on solving the problem. >> i agree. we need to colleges to set up better structures, better orientation for information to the incoming students, but they need to structures in place. that informed the students as to what violence is, campus

violence or sexual violence or would stalking or intimidation is. yes. >> and i think an important piece of the statistic is that they really aren't what gets reported in the formal structures and so that's why -- >> say that again. >> the statistics are reports that come through the university through formal structures so that in many campuses it is the campus police or the dean of def students office and so, what we found in our climate studies that we do is actually a very small percentage of students that report their sexual assault experiences actually report to those structures. students are more likely to report to a friend or their roommate. that's why i think a bystander intervention is so important and also so important to release the findings of those studies so that when a prospective students and their family look at the

statistics and say this is really low it's not necessarily indicative of what's happening on the campus for the study would give them much more comprehensive view of what's happening on campus. >> thank you senator baldwin. >> i want to start by thanking the panel for your testimony and particularly those of you survivors who have taken something horrible and turned it into a very positive advocacy and support for others. i want to continue to highlight one aspect of the issue of campus sexual assault the one that mr. kelly spoke to his testimony how it may uniquely impact lesbian, gay, transgender

people. it's a social stigma and dissemination of still mean that many in the community are reluctant to report that they have been victims of crime. furthermore, while title ix prevents all forms of sex discrimination including that's based on stereotypes and the act requires reporting of campus hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity there is no federal law that specifically addresses discrimination education based on sexual orientation and gender identity. as you heard earlier today with senator murray's questioning that she and i and other colleagues have introduced legislation called the tyler pawlenty higher education anti-harassment act which would require colleges and universities to address harassment including cyber bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity and

other characteristics and this legislation that added to the important protections that were already discussing today and that are already on the books to ensure that colleges and universities take steps to avoid and address harassment in all of its forms. i would like to hear from the panel that mr. kelly i would like to start with you and i know you have some very specific things in your testimony that are there other ways in which the congress or the administration can better and sure that the response to campus sexual assault and other forms of campus violence is truly inclusive of the lgbt community click >> thank you for your questions and legislation that you are speaking about i think is so incredibly important. i think that when we are talking about the harassment that students have in a similar way we toowe took about six dissemin

under title ix including sexual harassment and sexual violence i think we could be talking about sex discrimination they face. so this is the unfortunate reality is hate crimes still happen on campus and unfortunately the reality is sexual violence in the community is still pretty rampant. i think making sure that the policies cater specifically to those that have been the most often hurt by it is the best place to start. there's been a lot of talk on the committal justice system here. i try to go to the criminal justice system but i have an unwinnable case because i am a male and so i could never prosecute against my assailant. and we need to be talking about how better to have state legislation and, you know, local legislation that expands the definition of violence to include male survivors and survivors of same-sex sexual

assault. some of the states th that senas are from discriminatory on the books. i was doing a quick search and you see male pronouns when we are talking about assailants and female pronouns when we talk about survivors. things like that need to be eradicated from the law and the senate is the place to start. you have to start at the top. i appreciate the work that you've done on the topic and it's one that we have to keep talking about and legislating. >> i would reiterate the point about language. it's called the violence against women act independently very clear picture of who violence happens to and who perpetrates and leaves those people out. something to be mindful of as we are requiring colleges to consider doing surveys and you can probably speak better to this than i can but they should be made sure that it measured at incidences across the groups and

that doesn't presum it doesn't e sex partners or as a assailants. >> i would agree and say that i know we worked very hard to put prevention strategies that are inclusive and again, we need evidence to know what works. >> the vote has started. one more thing i wanted to bring up to get your thoughts on, the department published a proposed rule on the act just last week. one of the provisions that is gaining a great deal of tradition is clear of fighting that both parties have others present during an institutional disciplinary proceeding including an appetizer of their choice. on the one hand, some argue that this erodes the institution's

ability to control its own proceedings in that it chips away at the institutions of the body to marshal ittwo marshall d community members to police their own. others indicate both parties have the right to have somebody accompany them and offer advice or in what could amount to a very genetic proceeding on either side. okay. what are your thoughts on that. >> i would say i think both are very important for a survivor to have someone present during that hearing. someone just to sit next to you or consult with and kind of recess or just make sure that you are managing. they also deserve that right. the risk i believe comes with lawyers and at 53 council and the inequity that it didn't go if one could afford a lawyer and the other could not and the kind of advice that might be given of whether the privileged in one sense to one side of the kind of

investigation but then it's not available. i think that is where the advisory role perhaps present a serious problem. >> one might have the financial resources to have all kind of a lawyer and th into the other pey not. that is a good point. >> what is important to note it doesn't limit the advisor can be but it does give a leeway as what they can do in the meeting. as a school has the ability to limit the adviser to only be present in the room and not allowed to speak, and i think that's important because often times schools don't have that some resources. talking about the rape crisis counselors, domestic violence advocates, stuff like that whereas an outside crisis counseling center, you know, local crisis counseling center would have those resources. if the comment to be able to limit to the advisor could be to the members in the institution which i know a lot of the schools have historically done e

with the problematic because then you can leave them with no one who has training and how best to support a survivor in a difficult time. i do understand the difficulty with having attorneys present and things like that but if you are limiting what is able to be saiset in these meetings by the advisers and the role of the advisor as long as you have the ability to have someone present that is what matters the most. >> i think it is a sensual to allow outside support people because i think sometimes colleges and universities do not provide survivors with the most informed in support of peoplesoft advocate heavily to have the survivors have outside people and i would agree with john on what those advisers do. >> senator white house said this and i raised the issue having somebody at a student ca that ao to who is not in the hierarchy

structure. >> if they have communication either through counseling or health center or victim advocate i think is the way to go. >> that they may not be trained to know all of the legal nuances and stuff. >> victim advocates are. >> i was actually about to say most offices have district advocates who operate basically to provide victims of crime, a variety of crimes with all of the resources at their disposal in a sort of accompany them in the legal process to have victim witnesses i think that would be a good solution to that problem. >> i have two minutes left and they tell me to get over there. i would like to thank the witnesses for sharing your expertise. i particularly want to think the survivors that are here with us today and for your personal courage in coming forward and

speaking with us. i must say that when i hear you i put a lot of weight on what you are suggesting rather than perhaps others. i gave get a lot of weight to . and that's goes to the issue of having a sliding scale and things like that i seem to have a disagreement with the department on. so i just want to thank you for that and especially thank you for all of the wonderful research that you have done. you are absolutely right. i am the father of prevention and health and everything else. we have got to do a better job of having structures in our school that inform students, that set up preventative type measures. >> and thank you for all of your work. >> but again we have to do something to respond to the assault victims that are there. >> i just found out the military

academies don't have to report under the act. that needs to be fixed, too. i think you and my colleagues and especially want to thank senator alexander. it will be a part of our higher education act reauthorization. exactly how well, that's why we are having this hearing is to try to address what to do. i request the records remain over the july 10 to submit statements for the record and the committee will stand adjourned. thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> usa recently held its 95th annual party convention in chicago. sam webb delivered the keynote address. the event included a number of speeches on issues like climate change, the minimum wage, iraq and the midterm elections. watch the entire convention saturday starting at eight eastern on c-span.

the hearing looking at the right role supporting the u.s. travel and tourism industry a year from the commerce department deputy undersecretary for international trade along with the acting assistant secretary of state for consular affairs. the senate subcommittee hearing is one hour and 20 minutes

today's hearing will examine the efforts to reach the nation's gold of attracting 100 million international visitors annually by the year 2021. last month we heard from key industry stakeholders on how we could achieve this goal. it was clear there were areas where the federal government could do better. today i would like to focus on three ways to increase tourism. first is how the government engages in travel and tourism expert promotion and the importance of targeting international markets to grow this sector having the right data about international markets has been key to its success. looking at the state like hawaii

as examples, the federal government should partner with industries to make sure the right data are collected. this will make us -- this would help "decisions about which orchids to target at the national level. we need to shift our approach from meeting existing demand to driving demand. and in doing so in short federal resources are prepared to meet it. the second issue is improving accessibility. a fundamental piece of travel and promotion. we can do all of the tourism promotion we want but if we are not ready to receive travelers our efforts are for not. a component is the arrival process, customs and border protection has initiated several programs to reduce the rate of times and the ports of entry. but the united states still faces challenges with long lead times. this makes the travelers less likely to return. the u.s. also experienced

challenges meeting the demands for demandfor visas especially e emerging economies such as china and brazil. the department has made progress in reducing the visa interview with times and as the demand rises we need to further streamline the processes and leverage the technologies to make sure those that want to travel here can do so without unnecessary delay. to address accessibility challenges this bill would improve the arrival process by expanding the entry program and strengthening the model courts program. the invite act with direct cdp into the state department to look at ways to coordinate the passport, visa and global entry application processes. the bill would build upon the current model courts program and requirrequire cbp to develop mes to measure the program's

performance and it would further public-private partnerships by establishing a matching grant program for eligible airports to create more user-friendly ports. i look forward to any comments the witnesses may have today related to this bill. the third issue is how we provide a quality visitor experience to attract new visitors and encourage repeat visitors. the federal government has a role to play in reducing barriers to quality experience. we need to shift our mindsets to become more customer focused and how we deliver federal services. this means rethinking how the federal government operates. it also means investing in today's workforce. we need to train employees at all levels to be forward leaning into the liver better services and create a positive experience for our visitors. as we address these issues, i look forward to hearing from the witnesses on how they are partnering with private sector stakeholders to grow the travel and tourism industry. thank you all for being here

today. if the senator has an opening statement, we would be happy to hear from him. >> i am pleased you are holding this hearing and you understand the travel and tourism issues as well as the importance of encouraging visitors and dealing with visitors in the appropriate ways so if they want to come back in the ways that we need to secure our entry and understand our exit system in the country and i thank you for conducting this hearing. >> do you have any remarks before we get going? thank you. senator nelson is going to be for questioning as well. senator scott is on his way. when he comes he will be offering an opening statement. i would like to introduce the witnesses today. we have deputy undersecretary for international trade and the

department of commerce. michelle vaughn acting assistant secretary for the bureau of consular affairs for the department of state. the acting assistant secretary for the private sector office of the department of homeland security and john wagner, acting assistant commissioner of the office of field operations at the united states customs and border protection. before we start i want you to know your two statements will be part of the record and i would like to remind you to limit your remarks to five minutes. please proceed with your statement. >> chairman, ranking member scott and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak about the department of commerce full in supporting the international travel and tourism strategy. i first want to thank my colleagues today for their

leadership, partnership and hard work in moving the strategy forward. it is truly an administration wide effort. the travel and tourism industry now accounts for more than 26% of america's services exports and 8% of exports overall. travel and tourism is the largest service export. altogether the trade surplus in this industry is bigger than ever. it is $57 billion in 2013. that is 20% higher than the $47.5 billion surplus in 2012 and the largest on the record. we are pleased to report a record 70 million international visitors traveled to the united states in 201325% increase over 2012 and spent a record $187 million. these numbers are important. they represent expert growth in the united states and supports american jobs. international travel and tourism supports 1.2 million jobs in the united states and more than

7.8 million americans work in the u.s. travel and tourism sector overall. contributing to the tourism is our international tourism strategy. the strategy set an ambitious goal of attracting 100 million international visitors annually to the united states by the end of 2021. the tourism policy council a cabinet level group led by secretary pritzker is coordinating the implementation of the strategy of obligation with the private sector to help facilitate legitimate travel to the united states. however even as the demand has grown but challenges remain some travelers are experiencing bottlenecks at the border and demand remain high. this increased competition for international travelers and the increased number of travelers are putting pressure on the infrastructure. clearly we have more work to do. the perspective in the private sector have incorporated into the five areas where we the u.s. government are focusing our

efforts in moving forward. first, we are working to continue improving these processes. second, we want to improve the experience of travelers at u.s. ports of entry. to that end on may 22, the president announcing efforts to develop a national goal to enhance the entry process for international travelers to the united states along with the development of specific action plans in the nation's busiest airports. president obama directed the secretary of homeland security and commerce to lead this important effort. third we will promote the united states by supporting the brand usa the public-private partnership established by the travel promotion act of 2009. fourth, we want to make more data about federal tourist sites more accessible to the industry for marketing use and finally, we will explore ways to expand the statistical information that we collect and publish on international travelers to the united states. while the federal government is coordinating across the agency

it is important to highlight of the private sector's role is in implementing the strategy. the promotion act established the corporation for travel promotion now doing business as brand usa with the mission of spearheading the nation's first international marketing efforts to promote the united states as the premier global travel destination as of 2013 they recruited more than 400 partners who were participating in more than 100 programs around the world. partners situated within $122 million in value and fiscal 2013 that are being utilized by brand usa to create and execute an international marketing campaign. we will continue to work with brand usa to ensure the u.s. remains the top global tourist destination. with the national strategy i'm pleased to report that we are doing better than ever before and we will continue to improve the agency coordination and engagement with industry. it is truly only by working

hand-in-hand across the public and private sector that we will achieve the 100 million visitor goals set forth in the strategy. thank you and i welcome questions. >> thank you very much ambassador. >> good morning, chairman, ranking member scott and distinguish members of the subcommittee. my testimony this morning will focus on what the department of state has accomplished in support of the president's national travel tourism strategy. and i'm pleased to report we have met the president's directive and have been surpassing the benchmark since 2012. we do this while continuing to protect the borders and the safety of our citizens. the numbers speak for themselves. in fiscal year 2013, the consular offices issued more than 9.2 million u.s. visas and increase of 42% over the past three years. we are on pace to surpass that

number this fiscal year. the largest growth in travel comes from the world's emerging economies where we have seen demand for the visas increase at a dramatic pace. in fact nearly half of the worldwide of these are issues come from poorer countries. mexico, china, brazil and india. in the first half of the fiscal year we processed more than three quarters of a million in china, a 28% increase in more than half a million in brazil, a 17% increase over the previous year. these have doubled since 2009 and almost quadrupled since 2006. since august 2012 the consular affairs has met the goal set by the president to interview 80% of applicants worldwide within three weeks of submitting their application. in fact so far this year we have

interviewed 71% of applicants within the week and 95% of applicants within three weeks. in the busiest overseas post or be issued over half a million last fiscal year appointment wait times are consistently less than one week into the average visitor spends 20 minutes in the building. with me briefly highlight two key strategic improvements we have made in the visa processing model. first we increase the staffing. we have 167 counselor officers in china and have more than doubled the staffing in brazil since 2011. 59 educators have been hired and deployed worldwide through a limited o noncareer appointment program that hires adjudicators already speak chinese, portuguese or spanish.

second, we expanded facilities to handle increased numbers of applicants and we are still growing. we are adding nearly 60 windows across our post. we are moving into another facility in mexico. in brazil and in china we are opening entirely new consulates in the coming years. our top priority in the adjudication is always national security. every adjudication includes an extensive biographic and the biometric check supported by the data from the law enforcement and intelligence communities. in 2013 we improved the process even more making possible an even more streamlined and competence of continuous monitoring of the visa applicants. we are working with our colleagues across the government to expand the successful interview weaver program. we would like to discuss with

congress to expand the applicant groups that can receive the visa because those that are better known to us allows us to dedicate valuable time and resources to less known applicants. we bb the u.s. interest and legitimate travel, trade promotion and educational exchange complement our border security mission. they also occupied the spac spat the nexus of foreign-policy and national security. our daily direct contact with the world gets us a perspective unlike any other in the u.s. government. we will continue to innovate come increase our staff and improve our facilities to ensure that the united states continues to be a secure and welcoming country. thank you and i will be pleased to answer questions.

>> members of the subcommittee i'm pleased to appear before you take to discuss the department of homeland security's major travel tourism initiatives. the travel and tourism area showcases our goals of economic and national security. every year the dhs facilitate the travel of tens of millions of international visitors with secure passengers and screening travelers as they cross the borders and play an important role in the security process among many other responsibilities. facilitating the secure travel with the present of commerce and others. we have the key to driving economy not as the barrier. the goal of enhancing national security and boosting economic prosperity are fundamentally intertwined. may of 2012 the administration launched the traveling tourism strategy setting the goal of attracting international visitors. to meet the goal for dhs and the

department of commerce have begun developing a national strategy for improving service levels for international air passengers. specific plans are under development including the input from both the private and public sectors. the sticklers include airports, airlines, global, state and federal governments, workers and passengers all of an essential role to play. the dhs asset and facilitating the addressable travelers is a dedicated workforce rethinks to the congressional support the customs and border protection officers woul with enhanced sec, produce wait times and facilitate trade into trouble by benefiting the nations economy. to facilitate the streamlined entry processes and improve the international travelers experience they continue partnering with the industry including leveraging advanced technologies and expanding voluntary trust traveler programs. one example is expanding the pre- check to the international carriers at the airport and the long-term goal of the risk based approach to the aviation

security. another example is the president's for developing the trusted traveler program. finally, they continue to support the expansion of global entry with its international partners. the dhs created a program that leverages private sector expertise to executive program and this brings the government and industry expertise together to support efforts to promote the dhs travel and tourism goals. last month he announced seven executive assignments to support these goals. these executives (-open-paren the traveler experience for the american public and visitors and gateway airport. private sector integration ensure the coordinated approach to identify innovative solutions to the security challenges. since 2003 they've collaborated with our international partners to expand security measures beyond the domestic borders and should offer facilitation benefit. this is why we believe that expanding the preclearance operations in the strategic

areas combined with expanding the trusted traveler programs would improve national security and facilitate the travel all prior to boarding the aircraft to the united states. we continue to welcome the input of the congress tto the congrese sector and traveling public to pursue the mission in an effective, innovative and efficient way. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you very much. mr. wagner. >> thank you for the opportunity to discuss ways the customs and border protection is facilitating travel to the united states. during 2013 the process of more than 260 million passengers in the land, sea and air environment in the 102 million air passengers. since 2009 we've seen remarkable growth in international travel with a total passenger volume and airports rising approximately 4% each year. the staffing levels have struggled to keep pace with this growth resulting in increased

wait times in many ports of entry. one of the main challenges we face is the current international transportation model that creates a large peak of passenger arrivals. for example in miami airport will routinely see about 16 flights arrive per hour in the late afternoon and early evening. about 12,500 people over a five-hour period. to address this ongoing challenge we have developed a three-part resource optimization strategy at number one, identifies the staffing requirements using the work staffing model, never to commit efficient use of resources by optimizing the current business processes and number three, funding strategies to support the staffing increases. the workload staffing model employs a data-driven methodology to identify the staffing requirements by concerning allah to these performed by cbp officers at the ports of entry to the volume of those activities and the level of effort required to carry them out. most recent of the models are the 4,373 additional cbp officers through the fiscal year 2015.

cbp's greatest resource is occurring and facilitating travel these are professional workforce. thanks to the support in congress, the 2014 appropriations act including funding for 2,000 new cbp officers these additional officers will be allocated utilizing the workload staffing model and directed t it to the ports with the greatest need while the 2,000 additional officers bring additional support to the mission of workload staffing model identifies the need for an additional 2,000 officers. this has been included in the 2015 budget request along with a proposal for the user fee increases to fund this effort. we realize personnel a loan is in the answer to approving the process. cdt has been relentlessly self-critical to ensure the operations are as efficient and secure as possible. we are incorporating technological enhancements, developing self-service kiosks and reducing paper forms for travelers to be an example and programs that segment were arrived at travelers and efficient processing modes like an easy pass lane at