provide samples, blood, saliva, other things. i'm not going to go into. be there for mris and ultrasounds and even some experiments. sometimes i'll be laying in some kind of contraption. i don't know what they're trying to figure out. do whatever you need to do. so it's providing data over an extended period of time. sometimes i'll visit houston and meet with the researchers and spend a whole day giving data. sometimes they'll send somebody to tucson or even once to new york city to collect data from me. and we'll do this while my brother's in space, but i think also after he gets back for a period of time. from what we understand from some of these researchers, one of them recently said they're going to have more information on scott and i on our molecular

and genetic information than any other human ever. that was not an official position, but this is what one of the researchers, their comment on this study. there's probably 10 to 12 different experiments or at least universities doing experiments from the university of frankfort, stanford, purdue. it'll be interesting to see what the data shows on the genetic and molecular effects from this long duration space flight. my brother mentioned there'll be a cliff. i think that needs a little bit further explanation, right? we have data on a lot of people out to six months in space. we have a pretty good idea what

happens in that six-month period. we have no data beyond six-months, so maybe there becomes a bend in the curve. we know people's vision gets worse over the six-month period. but maybe at nine months or ten months it gets really bad. imagine you're trying to send a crew to go live and work on mars for an extended period of time, but by the time they get there they're going to be nearly blind from the environment. that's a big problem. that's part of the idea of doing this research over a one-year period is to figure out if there's any bends in the curve. >> what are the thoughts of both of you on how soon we can get to mars? >> you know, i think our ability to go to mars is not so much based on the technology to do that. i think that part we can figure it out. we can figure out the engineering and the propulsion system. ultimately, i think we can figure out what it's going to

take to mitigate some of these physiological effects of being in space. but the factor that really controls when we actually do this is the public desire to do it. we will need a lot of public support if we're going to take on that kind of endeavor to put a person on mars, and that public support then means that we get congressional support and administration support in the white house. that's the most important thing because a challenge like sending people to mars it's going to be expensive and it's going to take a long time. without that public support, i would say it won't happen. >> the both of you have spent time in the station and had that experience of adjusting back to earth gravity. scott will have that in a more significant way one imagines because of the length of time

he'll be up there, but what are the three or so most unique things that your body experiences, that you go through, when you transition back to earth from a period of time up on the space station? >> it's interesting. after my shuttle flight, which was relatively short duration, i really felt heavy. after my station flight of 200 days, i felt heavy but the main sensation i had was one of being dizzy. you could still walk, but it took a few days before that dizziness abated. the thing that surprised me about 200 days was how quickly i adapted back to earth. i was prepared for much worse and had months of lingering effects, but i adapted a lot quicker than i thought. >> was that also your experience on the transition? >> well, i flew four flights but

they're all around two weeks or a little bit more or a little bit less. i don't have that experience of being in space for a long period of time, but my observation has been that when you're flying a space shuttle mission, it is like a two-week train wreck of trying to operate and get everything you need to complete in this short period of time. you have a lot of crew members working very fast. you don't have a lot of time to exercise. it's important to exercise in space. on a space shuttle mission, i'll exercise two or three times. space station crew members, even though they're in space for six months, they're doing a significant amount of exercise every single day. i think that's what happens. i think that's why you acclimated pretty well after 200 days in space. it probably didn't feel a lot different than being in space

for just two weeks. >> i think both of you would agree the technology is imaginable on getting to mars. what happens with our astronauts once they get there? how do we handle making it so astronauts can live there? how difficult will it be? how long do they have to stay before coming back, or would they just not come back? >> we're going to see that in a movie in about a week or so. >> you can see the movie. you can read the book also. there's two ways to go to mars. this is a big question that needs to be answered. you can go the slow boat way, the traditional chemical rocket. it takes six to nine months to get there. you have to wait for earth and mars to catch up again before you can come home. you spend about a year and a half on the surface. another six months to come home.

it's a three-year mission, which is a lot of time for your water systems to work and your carbon dioxide remufoval to work. using electricity, you pump out the propellant fast on the back end. you need a nuclear reactor in space to pump enough electricity. if you do the fast way, the problems of the human body in space is mitigated. the problems of packing water is mitigated and your systems don't last as long. we have to get there either the fast way or the slow way. >> if we made the decision and congress got behind it, how far away are we from realistically achieving this, do you think? >> well, the first human in

space happened in 1961 and we were on the moon in 1969. there's a historical context. actually getting to mars takes longer than getting to the moon, but it could be done in a decade or two maybe. mark's answer was very well. it's more a question of political science than it is rocket science. >> let me ask you about nasa in general as someone who grew up with apollo. for me, apollo 15 was the end all because i was 7 years old. i didn't remember apollo 11, but i had the astronaut dolls or whatever you want to call them, the little guys that i'd play with. nasa was a huge deal, right? then in more recent years there was some thought that nasa had come on harder times. we were relying on the russians more and nasa's glory days were

over. then we had the pluto fly-by. there was so much excitement cre created. what is your view of where we are with our space agency in the united states and what do we need to do, if anything, to put it on the right future course? >> i can talk about what we're doing now and i'll let mark finish. there's a lot going on at nasa. the pluto mission obviously. we have mars rovers. the human space flight program is very robust. nasa is very involved in space exploration, all aspects of it robotically and human. it has not gone away at all. we are flying with the russians right now. that was one of the highlights of my mission was getting a chance to work with russian

colleagues. that was a great experience. soon we'll be flying on american vehicles again. nasa is very busy. it hasn't ended in any way, shape, or form. there's a very bright future. >> here in the united states we have the best scientists and engineers in the world, and i think we can do anything we set our minds to. really anything. especially in space flight. it's challenging, but we have the resources to do these things. i think what we need to do is pick exciting missions that the public will be interested in like the pluto mission. being somebody who used to work at nasa and fly in space, even i thought that was pretty neat to see pluto up close for the first time, to see those images come back and start to learn more about something that is or isn't a planet. i don't know what it is today, so we've got to pick these exciting missions. then we have to allow nasa to do

this. what often happens we'll be asked to do something and then either sometimes nasa will cancel a program or congress will cancel it or the white house will cancel it. we have to understand these things, despite the ability of our scientists and engineers to do these things, they do take a long period of time. often from one administration in the white house to the next, so i think people just need to be patient. we need to give nasa the resources to do these hard things, but we have the people and the ability to accomplish exciting things in space. >> terry, we heard scott earlier say he was really looking forward to his space walk and you completed three space walks during your mission and this helped prepare the space station for the new boeing commercial vehicles. you also gave us some amazing

gopro imagery and it made us feel like we were there too, but can you tell us what it was like to be out on the space walks and doing this sort of work? >> yeah, it was definitely a unique -- i've had a chance to do a lot of stuff in life. that was definitely unique. going outside for the first time. in the pool, we practice doing space walks in this weightless pool. there's a module from there to there. i reach over and grab and move on to where i'm doing my work. on my very first space walk i went to do that. nope, i'm not going to do that. i kind of stayed on the side of the space station and didn't take the shortcut, but it is an amazing experience to look back and see the earth. i felt like maybe a minute or two to do that in all my three space walks because they were so busy. there's so many tasks that had to happen, so i never really felt like i had any free time while i was out there.

it was more like a shuttle flight than it was a station flight. >> mark, where the international space station, it's almost like we're so used to it we're almost taking it for granted, but what could be done to improve the scientific output of the space station and the impact it has? >> well, my brother mentioned that they've got over the period of time that he's going to be there there's 400 different experiments going on in a bunch of different laboratories. there's the u.s. laboratory. there's the japanese laboratory. there's a european laboratory on board. the russians do science in the russian segment, so it's an incredible facility. there's a lot going on. to expand the output of the space station, you just need more people. space station was first launched in 1998, so 17 years now. starting to get kind of old. things break. people have to fix things when

they break. that takes time away from doing the science. you don't have an electrician or a plumber. you don't have somebody to clean the place up, so the crew members are the -- they're the mechanic. they're the scientist. they're the secretary, the guy who is fixing the toilet when that breaks. you're the maid. you're cleaning up on the weekend or during the week, so it really comes down to crew time. but to add crew members is complicated. you have more crew members on board. now you need another return vehicle on board that acts as a lifeboat if something happens. it also needs those -- those extra people you need to be able to support them not only with food and water but oxygen, air to breathe, and carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, so it gets really complicated. to answer your question, we

would need more people to get more out of it. >> the international space station is living up to its name. do you foresee when we look at mars and long space flights in the future, do you envision that these will be international collaborations or more of u.s. efforts? >> my own personal view is that it will definitely be international. the reason the international space station survived, if you look at the history of it back in the 90s, i think the international aspect of it allowed it to make it through congress. the international program makes it something that can survive over a longer period of time. plus it's great to have the ingenui ingenuity. >> somebody passed up a question about elan musk, who recently talked about mars and using a

thermo nuclear device as an option to make mars more habitable. any thought or comment on that? >> i saw that in the newspaper. i don't know the science behind nuking a planet, but i will tell you elan is a very smart guy and he does think outside the box. when you look at what he's been able to accomplish not only with spacex launching can cargo, hopefully people pretty soon, a big solar company, he tends to know what he's talking about, but i don't know the science behind nuking the planet. >> another person in the audience here writes u.s.-russia relations are tense on earth but seem very productive in space. what can leaders learn from your

cooperation aboard the international space station? >> i can definitely second that motion. on earth, preparing to launch in space are great. our colleagues there are very great and capable. i had a great time in space with anton and sasha and misha, who is up there with scott right now. we had a great experience with them. frankly, i think the station has accomplished aot of things. the most important thing is the international relation aspect of it. of all the ups and downs of relationships on earth, the space station has been a very positive beacon of light. >> so terry, you were on the space station during experiments with 3d printing. please describe the benefits of technology for deep space missions in the future and for the space station now if there are any. were there any parts produced during the test run that were

used and any lessons learned that could improve on the technology in the near term? >> yes, the 3d printing is a great concept. you can imagine going to mars. your closet is going to be full. you're limited to one bag only, so you can't bring all the tools you need. if you can print out on parts or tools, that can save on the amount of mass you have to launch. we did make a wrench. it was made of plastic. it wasn't like a hard metal wrench, and it was the first time it was done in space, so it was more of a technology demonstrator. it was cool to see a tool printed out in space. we send it back down to earth for analysis, but that's a technology that has a lot of promise, i think.

>> mark, what is the lasting impression space has given you? what's the thing that strikes you the most later on? >> i think what became very obvious to me in 2001 during my first space mission was that we live on an island in a really unforgiving environment. you look back at the earth from a distance. you have very few people on board the space shuttle and space station. we have 7.5 billion people on this round ball just floating there in the blackness of space. we really have no place else to go and that becomes a very -- that was pretty striking and pretty quick observation by my part and i imagine by other astronauts that fly in space, so i think it gives you a little bit more of an appreciation for our planet and what it does for all of us and the need for us to consider that and take care of it. >> right.

terry, as we've talked about, the space station crew has conducted hundreds of experiments, including many that have been developed by science students and transmitted up there. do you consult with these same students when questions arise and if so, how, and which science student experiments were the most interesting or challenging? >> we do have -- it depends on the experiment. sometimes they will -- we just talked to houston or huntsville as the nasa control center when we're doing experiments. sometimes if it is complicated, they'll tie us in directly to the scientist who made it, so it depends on the experiment. i'm trying to think of the student-only experiments we had. you just do the experiment. you don't really know who came up with it, but as far as student experiments, i do

remember they built some equipment like storage bags. >> spheres. >> there's a thing called spheres. they're little satellites with little cartridges of air jets that fly around. it was that a big student-led experiment with m.i.t. that my crew mates were talking to the ground. kind of like robotic ko competitions that kids do nowadays, only this was a satellite competition in space they were doing. >> do you think ending the space shuttle program before there was a replacement slowed the u.s. space program? in other words, was it a good transition or could we have done better? >> so we have the columbia

accident that happened in 2003. after columbia, there was a joint decision to retire the space shuttle because we realized if we continued to fly it another decade, we would lose another spacecraft and a crew, and we didn't want to do that, so this was a decision made by the white house, congress, nasa, and the astronaut office. what it allowed us to do was speed up the development of what the next spacecraft was going to be. when you get into testing and developing and building the hardware for a new system, a new launch system, a new rocket, a new spacecraft, it gets really expensive really quickly. like upwards of $2 billion to $3 billion a year to do this. the space shuttle operating budget was about $2 billion to $3 billion a year. we could have retired the space shuttle and used that money to

develop a new spacecraft or we could have gotten $2 would haved have reformed the space shuttle. it's the best spaceship ever. i loved it. part of me wishes it was still around, but at the same time, we did make the right decision.

because the space shuttle was designed to fly about 100 flights. . and endeavor, which i flew on its last flight was flight number 25. they were designed to fly about 100 flights but not for 30 or 40 years. that's the issue we were dealing with. so it put us in a position where we have to rely on our russian partners to get crew members to and from the space station right now and over the next couple years still, but we'll be back flying u.s. crew members on u.s. rockets from u.s. soil here in no time. and it puts us on a good path going forward. >> either one of you if you were congress or the president, where would you focus our resources for nasa? would it be on a mars mission, missions like the pluto fly by going back to the moon rgs the space station, where do we need

to put our focus? >> we do everything. >> what. if you didn't have all those resources? >> nasa does not have just one. i would not focus on just one thing. nasa has a broad mission to do both aircraft research and also robotic space exploration, so i would divide it up. >> okay. terry, you stayed connected to earth through your favorite past time of baseball. az understand, you set out to photograph every major league ballpark from orbit and posted many of these on social media. did you get them all? where did that end up? >> i got almost all. and the coast stadiums are pretty easy to get. like baltimore is easy, d.c., new york stadiums. boston is very easy. it's when you get to the middle

of the country it gets tough. there's nothing obvious around kansas city. it's hundreds of miles of flat or st. louis or cincinnati. so the ones on the corners were easy to get. but i think i did get them all. i still need to go through files and double check the ones in the center of the country. pittsburgh was tough to get with the hills and stuff in western pennsylvania. >> i think my brother is working on getting all the football stadiums now. maybe because of what you did. maybe that's where e he got that idea. >> i want to remind people in. the room that are astronauts will be available down the hall for stand up interviews immediately after this program concludes. i also want to e remind you that the national press club is the world's leading professional organization for journalists.

we fight for a free press worldwide and for more information about the club, visit press.org. to donate to our nonprofit journalism institute, visit press.org/institute. i'd also like to remind you about some upcoming programs. this wednesday, september 16th, a at 1:30 p.m. archbishop of miami, bishop oscar kran tu of new mexico and dr. caroline woo, ceo of catholic relief services will discuss pope francis's upcoming visit to washington, d.c. on monday, september 21st, big 12 commissioner will discuss college athletic. and jane choo will discuss new initiatives at a breakfast on september 28th. i would now like to present our in-room guests with the national press club mug.

you can't easily find it on the space station either. we'll have to figure out a way to get it to your brother. get an extra one. >> i can take care of that. it's not very useful in space, though. >> we mentioned the mars movie that will be coming out. so much fascination in literature, movies, television with space. i'm a "star trek" junky. tell me what kind of science fiction you enjoy, if any, and what you think about the movies and the science fiction you see out there either in book books or on tv, starting with you, terry. >> i have always enjoyed it. "star wars" was the big thing when i was a kid. i remember reading arthur clark as a teen. he wrote some great stuff. watching 2001 there's a space

station in north orbit and i watched that in space and thought a lot of the stuff came true 50 years later. just watched "interstellar" while i was in space. that's a movie you have to watch a couple times to figure out what's happening. >> so does hollywood get it wrong most of the time? >> they have to make it exciting. scott brought up this big projector with him so we watched "gravity" one night. and watched that movie, it was fun. the mechanics of where everything was and what it looked like was very real. of course, we don't have giant explosions and fireballs and so they have to make that to make the movie interesting. if it was just astronauts doing science experiments, it probably

wouldn't gross very much at the box office. >> mark, how about you? >> i just started reading this book called "seven eves" about using the space station to save humanity after something bad happens on earth. it's pretty interesting to see how either an author or hollywood uses existing space technology in their movies. when i was younger like these guys age down here, these brothers and sisters down here, i used to read a lot of isaac azmoth. it made me think about what it would be like to be in space one day and i think that's important. it gives people ambition to picture themselves in a different place in a different

time. >> the good thing, mark, with all the genetic data they have on you what you created to do, go do that and do it well. there's not one path to being an astronaut. there's engineers and we were previous pilots in our former lives. there's medical doctors in space

rugt now so we need people with lots of different skills. the key is to do what you're passionate about. >> i think there's a high probability that the young people in here today some time in their lives will have the opportunity to go into space. you see companies like virgin galactic and others that are starting on this road to space tourism. and it's exciting and we're going to see a lot more. right now, there's probably about 550 people that have ever been in space and i think that number is going to grow substantially over the next decade. >> is there more excite m now. about prospects in space than at any time in the past? >> one of the reasons is people are starting to think that, hey,

this could directly afelkt them. like maybe they are going to be the person in space. maybe in some of you are lifetimes instead of taking a flight from new york to london that typically takes about 7 hours, maybe some of us will take that flight in a space shuttle, which is about 40 minutes. that is -- there's no reason why that is not possible in the coming decade. people are starting to think about this differently. >> how about a round of applause for our guests? [ applause ] i want to thank our staff including the journalism institute for their work on today's program. if you'd like a copy of this program, go to our website at press.org and that's where you can also learn more about national press club.

thank you so much for attending today. we are adjourned. [ applause ] on the next washington journal, grover norquist on the various tax plans put forth by the republican presidential candidates. and then associate director of no kid hungry discusses u.s. households that currently have problems getting access to adequate food due to a welcome of money or resources. after that politico reporter looks at the hillary clinton e-mail probe and what it means for her presidential campaign. plus we'll take your phone calls, facebook comments and tweets. washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. ahead of pope francis's visit to the united states, the kay toe institute holds a discuss tomorrow on the pope's interpretation of current global economic issues such as poverty and capitalism.

see that live at noon eastern on c-span. also tuesday remarks from john mchugh on the future of the army after serving as that military branch's secretary for the last six years. he will discuss budgetary challenges he's faced in. the light of sequestration and how those budget issues have affected his duties to equip the army. secretary mchugh speaks at the american enterprise institute at noon eastern. see that on c-span 2. both chambers of congress are in session. the senate returns tuesday to take another procedural vote on disaprue i disapruing the nuclear agreement. that vote comes up at 6:00 eastern. later this week work is expected on a measure that would ban abortions after 20 weeks. you can see live coverage of the senate on c-span 2. the u.s. house returns wednesday for debate on several bills, including one that would

direct the tsa to enhance the security at airports. thursday the chamber will start work on legislation to ban funding for planned parenthood unless they agree to stop funding abortions. the house is lyeive on c-span. a signature feature of book tv is our all day coverage of book fairs and festivals from across the country with top nonfiction authors. here's our schedule. near the end of september, we're in new york for the brooklyn book festival celebrate. ing its 10th year. near the end of the month, we'll be covering two book festivals on the same weekend from our nation's heartland it's the wisconsin book festival in madison. and back on the east coast, the boston book festival. at the start of november, we'll

be in portland oregon for word stock followed by the national book awards from new york city. and at the end of november we're live for the 18th year in a row from florida for the miami book fair international. that's a few of the fairs and festivals this fall on c-span 2's book tv. up next, a house education subcommittee holds a hearing on combat. ing campus sexual assaults. one of the topics discussed on whether cases should be handled by the university or outside law enforcement in the criminal justice system. this is about two hours and 15 minutes. >> good morning, everyone. the subcommittee on higher education workforce will come to order. i welcome everyone today's committee hearing we are in a different location and we are a little tighter in here today than we normally would be and ask everybody's indulgence as

the renovation work goes on in the committee room. we'll all be friendlier and kinder to each other today and closer to each other. i'd like to thank our witnesses for joining us for an issue that affects far too many student, campus sexual assault. earlier this week as millions of students stepped foot on campus, members of congress returned from their districts to continue their work strengthening america's higher education system. as we all know, that effort often requires difficult but necessary conversations about tough issues, which is why we're here today. every college student should be able to learn an environment that's safe and free from fear and intimidation. yet for some students, that is not the case. according to one study approximately 1 in 5 women in college has been sexually

assau assaulted. several universities including michigan and m.i.t. report similar findings and a number of recent high profile cases further highlight the scope and seriousness of this important issue. as a former community college president, mother, grandmother, i know i'm not alone when i say all of us have a responsibility to protect students from sexual assault on campus. as one university president claimed, the issue of sexual assault keeps me awake at night. i feel personally responsible for the safety and well-being of all students. another said i see the issue of sexual violence and sexual assault on colleges and universities as a matter of national importance. students, parents, administrators and policymakers across the country share the same sentiment and have joined a a national conversation about these heinous crimes and how we can better protect students. at the college and university level, efforts to protect and

respond sexual assault are under way. for instance, some colleges and universities now require u students to participate in seminars to help them understand what sexual assault is and how to prevent and report it. at the university of north carolina chapel hill, for example, the seminars reenforce safe campus culture and explain policies and procedures for respond i responding to reports of sexual violence. institutions are also improving how they support victims of (áápu&t, providing resources and counselling services to help students recover from such a a terrible event. complete their education and continue with their lives. just as important administrators are working to put in place a fair resolution process that respects the rights of the victim and the accused. at the national level, the federal government has been working with colleges and universities to prevent and respond to sexual assault for decades.

recently members of congress have introduced legislative proposals intended to improve protections for college students. additionally, new policies, institutions must follow. colleges and universities have rightly raised concerns about the administration's one-size-fits all regulatory approach. the administration has further complicated a maize of legal requirements added to the c confusion facing students, administrators and faculty and made it harder for constitutions to gauarantee safety. as dr. remove will explain during her testimony, the patchwork of federal and state policies has impeded the efforts of administrators and educators to prevent and respond effectively to sexual assault on their campus. as congress works to strengthen higher education, it must enis sure tough responsible policies are in place to fight these

crimes and support the victims. i'm pleased we have a panel of witnesses to represent all sides of this difficult, yet important discussion. your observations and recommendations are vital to our efforts to help colleges and universities provide students the safe learning environment they dezerserve. with that, i now recognize the ranking member for his opening remarks. >> thank you, chairman fox. i join you in welcoming our distinguished panel of witnesses. the subject of this hearing is extremely sensitive. as ranking member of this subcommittee, i believe that we must raise the level of awareness in our communities and throughout our nation about the seriousness of campus sexual assault and its impact on our victims. both women and men and their

families. these impacts are far reaching and include poor academic performance, stress, depression and abuse of alcohol and drugs. in addition to supporting the vi victim, we must also be sensitive to the rights of the accused. institutions of higher education must have processes that ensure fairness in handling the ae allegations of campus assaults and that campus investigations are consistent with our nation's long standing principles of due process. whatever system is put in place, we must ensure victims are not afraid to come forward. many victims are reluctant to report sexual assaults because of shame or fear of retaliation r or worried about lack of proof, uncertainty that what

happened constitutes assault or because the lack of information on where or how to report the assault in fear of being treated poorly by the criminal justice system. as a nation, we have made progress towards better understanding and addressing this serious challenge of campus sexual assault. for example, through the development of the task force o to protect sexual assaults, a a department of justice's office of violence against women developed a multiyear initiative to provide support to programs o to prevent campus sexual assault and their recent online resource for changing our campus culture. in the year 2007, the u.s. department of justice also funded a ground breaking study on campus sexual assault. the findings of that study were staggering. let me give you some examples.

amongst women in college nearly 20% will be victims of attempted or actual sexual assault. as will about 6% of undergraduate men. most victims are violated in their first or second year at college. the majority 75 to 80% knew their attackers, often a friend, a classmate. acquaintance or someone they dated. the study also confirmed that the risk of campus sexual assault for undergraduate women increases greatly with the consumption of alcohol and/or drugs. it's clear our concerted efforts are needed to deal with these serious issues. in addition to these federal efforts, i am proud to report that my own home state of texas is responding to calls of

action. starting this year, colleges and universities are required to inform. students of campus sexual assault policies during freshman orientation. schools are also required to review and update those policies every two years. students returning to class at the university of texas campuses this fall will also be participating in the nation's most comprehensive study on sexual assaults ever conducted in higher education. learning and safe environments case study will be led by researchers at ut austin school of social work and will include online questionnaires for students, surveys and focus groups of faculty, staff and campus law enforcement and a four-year study of entering freshmen to identify the

psychological and economic impact of sexual violence. the ut system is spending $1.75 million on this study. so i applaud ut's effort to address campus sexual assault and urge other colleges and universities throughout our country to join in the commment to end sexual violence on their campuses. in closing, let us renew our efforts to support victims of campus sexual assault. we can't wait for yet another high profile incident to occur before we address this issue. i look forward to hearing what recommendations our panel of witnesses may have to reduce sexual assault on our college campuses and i thank you and with that, madame chair, i yield back. >> thank you. pursuant to committee rules, all members will be permitted to submit written statements to be

included in the permanent hearing record. without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other material referenced during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. it's now my pressure to introduce our distinguished witnesses. the general council at dickenson college in carlisle, pennsylvania. previously, she was in private practice in harrisburg, pennsylvania, where she chaired her firm's practice and represented several pennsylvania private colleges, including dickenson. she is an active member of the national association of college and university attorneys and a member of the legal services review panel of the national association of independent colleges and universities. dr. penny roo is vice president for campus like at wake forest in north carolina. she's responsible for the well

being and safety of wake forest university students and their education outside the classroom and is nationally known for her creative leadership in strengthening campus communities. . ms. lisa mots is vice president of government relations for the association of university women here in washington, d.c. she previously spent 16 months serving concurrently as the interim director of the aauw legal defense fund. she has done similar work for the now legal defense and education fund and the older women's league. mr. joseph cohn is policy director at the foundation for individual rights and education in philadelphia, pennsylvania. he's a former staff attorney for the united states court of appeals for the third circuit and a law clerk in the field court of common pleas. immediately prior to joining

fire, mr. cohn served as the interim legal director in nevada and utah. i now ask our witnesses to stand and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the affirmative. you may take your seat. before i recognize you to provide your testimony, let me briefly explain our lighting system. you have five minutes to present your testimony. when you begin, the light in front of you will turn green. when one minute is left, the light will turn yellow. when your time is expired, the light will turn red. at that point, i will ask that you wrap up your remarks as best as you are able. members will each have five minutes to ask questions.

now, i want to recognize ms. ska due to for her commentscaduto f. >> good morning, i thank you for the opportunity to be here today. as a higher education senior administrator with a long history of involvement in the issue of sexual misconduct on our nation's campus, i'm here today because we share the committee's commitment to educating our nation's students in safe and supportive u environments. american colleges and universities are happy to work in partnership with the government and others on finding solutions that will help bring about cultural change and put an end to this most serious problem. as we move forward, i want to take a few minutes to share with you some of the challenges

higher education is facing in our efforts and to propose some ways in which our government and this subcommittee can further help us achieve greater success in preventing and responding to sexual violence. as i make my comments, i will use my term victim out of expediency and because it's referenced in the campus save act but without personal preference as to terminology. first, please recognize that the reports of sexual violence we receive on our campuses are not straight forward or easy to resolve. the sexual violence claims we see most frequently do not involve force or attacks by strangers but between individual who is are acquainted, where one or both are intoxicated, and the primary issue is whether con extent to a sexual act was given. we're left to resolve word on word conflicts between two people whose memories may be impaired and where there are no witnesses. add to this the fact that reports may not be made for days, weeks or months following

an event and i can hope you see the complexity of resolving such issues in a a manner that the parties believe to be fair. while speaking of fairness, colleges and universities are committed to providing fair treatment to all of our students including not only victims, but also to those accused of sexual violence. the changes over the last four years have resulted in complexities and challenges in maintaining the necessary balance. for example, on a small campus removing an accused student from a class in order to keep the student away from an alleged victim before any determination of responsibility can be made may result in the accused student being forced out of a class where there are no other sections or being forced out of a class shortly before graduation. we're also trying to navigate the complexities of title ix laws as well as state laws simultaneously and without the confidence that we can do so to the satisfaction of all. employees duties to report under

various standards differ what and how we're supposed to advise victims of options o of moving forward when they report a sexual assault are just two examples of those complexities. additionally, the current laws and guidance do not appear to proceedings are not equipped to replace law enforcement or judicial functions. the members of our campus communities expected to meet and discharge the new standards for claims are faculty, staff and historically students, not judges nor lawyers. to support colleges and universities efforts to improve culture around this serious issue and to help us in our efforts to hold violators accountability through processes that are fair and impartial, i recommend the following four points for your consideration. first, pause and considering legislation that adds additional requirements to those already complex network of federal and state laws, regulations and guidance until there has been an opportunity to evaluate whether

the efforts to date are working. as a reminder, the regulations went into effect july 1st of this year. second, consider creating a safe harbor for higher education that does relieve us from accountability for failures to comply, but which provides us with certain presumptions of good faith when reviewing our conduct. for example, when we are aplieg fact-based tests by various laws such as in deciding whether to investigate or a victim's objection, if we miss the mark but have found to acted in good faith, provide us with protection from penalties or administrative action. third, if new requirements are considered at some point in the future, ocr should follow, notice and comment requirements of the administrative procedures act. the title ix guidance put in place since 1991 was done without notice or comment from parties outside the agency depriving colleges and universities, victims and

survivors and other interested parties of the opportunity to provide input that may have been helpful in improving clarity and alignment with existing laws and regulations. i'll leave my fourth point for your reading. thank you for listening and considering my perspective as a higher education administrator. >>. >> thank you, chairwoman fox, ranking member and honorable committee members for the opportunity to testify about this critically important issue. the higher education community takes the problem of campus sexual assault very seriously, and we are working diligently to manage systems fair to all students. these are not new issues for us. it's been a priority for decades because of our genuine care for the health, safety and well being of our students. currently, we must address sexual compliance responsibilities under a swirl

of regulations. this one size fits all creates challenges to impede our effort to prevent and respond to sexual assault. added to these challenges now are state legislatures that are enacting statutes creating a patchwork of conflicting regulations. prevention and education efforts are critical to reducing incidents of sexual violence. many campuses imply online modules allow new students to participate in prevention, orientation and beyond. online training programs educate faculty and staff to whom students might report about where to turn. according to the cdc, bystander intervention training are promising practices, but have not yet bee validated through rigorous design. some more grant support is needed to conduct evaluation research in had this growing field. at wake forest, we use prepare

peer educators to deliver situational programs to put incoming students attitudes to the test and really get them to think. a highly engaging peer theater program reenforces those messages and is followed by an online curriculum that uses scenarios highly relevant to students. this program will also give us benchmark attitudes that we can use to assess the effectiveness of our programs over time. after students have time to navigate the social scene, they will participate in a program. in their residence halls on intervention training using the step up model. surveys are another growing practice. these are used to assess perception of and experience with sexual violence and these surveys are designed to provide an institution specific picture that in turn enables leaders to coordinate with the community to strengthen e prevention efforts. one survey imposed on all institutions would not

accommodate the wide array of campus environments. they range from four-year residential like my own to community colleges and primarily online universities. each institution should have the awe tommy to develop the best survey. although prevention strategies are in place, sexual violence will still occur on our campuses. student affairs administrators are committed to being fair and balanced to all students engaged in the conduct process. kr critical to this process is the widely established practice of confidentiality for the victim and accused. one of the reasons a student will choose an on campus practice over report iing to th police. one of our most important points in trauma informed work is to allow the survivor the right to choose the path to follow in. the wake of an incident. some may want to report to the campus, some may want to report to the police or both. some may only want support. the institution really needs to respect that source.

to take the decision out of the victim's hand by mandating that a report to campus automatically is turned over to police will create a chilling effect on the willingness of victims to come forward. exactly the opposite of what we want to happen. the confidentiality of our conduct processes guaranteed creates uncertainty about their fairness. we know that. most recently towards the respondent, but it's important to reiterate the processes are structured to be fair and ek equitable to all parties. in the recent "washington post" foundation poll, 84% of current and recent college students said they are very or somewhat confident in the school administration's ability to address complaints. we are not a court of law. ours is an educational process intended to derive at a fair outcome for all parties. at the core of this distinction is our standard of scrutiny. of the evidence. i think i speak for most

colleges and universities in saying we do not need more regulation. e we need more consultation. guidance from the department of education coming without notice often does not help us navigate these waters. i strongly believe it is important to provide opportunities for public comment and discussion where the full complexity of the issues can be explored from those who know them firsthand. in closing, i must express deep concern about the narrative from the media that colleges and universities care more about their institutions, reputation than the rights and experiences of our students. nothing could be further from the truth. instead those of us who handle incident us of sexual violence are professionals who share an overwhelming commitment to strike the delicate balance in today's legislative environment to preserve the educational rights of students, to manage conduct and above all to prevent sexual violence.

thank you. >> thank you very much. ms. maatz, you're recognized for five minutes. >> good morning, on behalf of the more than 170,000 members, over 1,000 branches and 900 college and university partners of the american association of university women, i thank you for inviting us to testify today. my remarks are informed by my 12 years with auw and my tenure as the executive director of a domestic violence program re recognized by excellence and also at whitten burg university where i was a a hall director that responded to incidents of sexual assault. i can personally attest to the fact this is not a new problem. when campus environments are hostile because of sexual harassment and violence, students can't learn. it's that simple and that devastating. schools have an important and necessary role to play in addressing this epidemic.

why? because student rights to an education free of sex discrimination are on the line. auw has identified the need to end violence on campuses. our own research revealed that two-thirds of students experience sexual harassment. 1 in 5 women said they had been sexually assaulted in college. this impacts both men and women and students from all walks of life at all types of schools. title ix provide the very tools schools need to improve campus climates for everyone. 1972, title ix is a a law that prohibits sex discrimination. the law requires schools to take steps to eliminate sexual harassment and violence, prevent reourns, and address impacts on individual students on the campus. this includes evaluating current practices, publishing anti-discrimination policies and implementing grievance procedures providing for an equitable resolution of

complaints. schools must provide accommodation for students such as adjusting housing arrangements and providing academic support. actions that schools are uniquely situated to provide. all schools should have a title ix coordinator as well as monitor patterns and address systemic problems. these requirements are not new, but date back to the laws first regulations back in 1975. since then over the course of republican and democratic administrations, the department of education has continued to provide technical assistance and guidance that promotes compliance with the law. schools also follow a consumer protection law known as the clery act that requires colleges and universities that participate in financial aid programs to disclose crime statistics and security information. originally passed in 1990, it was updated in 2013 as part of a bipartisan reauthorization of the violence against women act. these updates require schools to report additional crime statistics on domestic violence

and stalking and provide ongoing sexual assault prevention and bystander training campus wide. this public report of a school safety effort is valuable to students and parents and provides insights to school working to improve campus safety. title ix are long standing complimentary law that work together to ensure they have a clear course of action when sexual violence occurs. appropriately schools are not in the business of imposing criminal punishments. those decisions are best left to authorities in charge of criminal investigation and prosecution. if a survivor chooses to pursue that course. the school's civil rights immediatings represent parallel yet equally necessary paths. laws and legal precedence spell out schools to be fair, prompt and impartial in all disciplinary u proceedings. title ix echoes these requirements. similarly, the clearly act requires processes be fair,

prompt and impartial and both parties receive timely notice regarding the outcomes of proceedings. there are next steps that congress can take to help schools and students in their effort to end sexual harassment and violence. the time immediately following an incident is especially critical for survivors. they need access to a safe space, medical and counselling and information about their rights and where they can seek additional support. schools should ensure an adviser is available o to connect survivors to resources. the au wrk supported outreach and support campus act would ensure schools take these critical steps. in addition, climate surveys can help schools better to understand the die nynamics beh reported and unreported incidents of sexual violence. schools need information in order to effectively combat this epidemic. when done well, surveys provide transparency crucial for safety and a useful tool to fine tune their response. the auw supported halt campus

sexual assault violence act would also require surveys at all schools. finally we urge congress to provide additional resources for the department of education to support coordinators and other stake holders on laws and best pr practices. there were schools working diligently to respond to incidents of sexual violence and technical assistance can help them make real change. further with more attention to sexual violence, we have also seen an uptick in complaints and unprecedented number of schools are under investigation for title ix compliance. they need additional funding to provide ongoing technical assistance for schools as well as to hold bad actors accountable. we all believe, i think, that a single incident is one too many. when it interferes with a student's education it adds insult to injury but we have tools to make real change. we look forward to working with you as you reauthorize and consider this important topic. thank you. >> thank you. mr. cohn, you're recognized for

five minutes. >> chairwoman fox, ranking member, honorable members of the subcommittee and members of the committee at large, thank you for the introduction. i'm the legislative and policy director for the foundation. we're a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to defending student and fak culty civil liberties on america's college campus. i thank you for the opportunity to discuss this critical issue. one of the core constitutional rights that fire defends is due process. universities are both morally and legally obligated to respond to known instances of sexual assault in a manner reasonably calculated to prevent its occurrence. for more than 50 years, courts have held that the constitution requires public institutions to provide meaningful due process protections to accuse students. fire believes that these twin

obligations need not be intention. access to higher education is critical. the stakes are extremely high for everybody in campus disciplinary proceedings and it's essential that no student's education is curtailed unjustly. while efforts to address the campus sexual assault have focused on eliminating bias, far too little attention has been placed on preventing bias. against the accused and even more insufficient attention has been placed o on addressing what i call the competency gap. the difference between what college administrators are equipped to do and what the department of education's office for civil rights is demanding of them. campuses are ill instituted to ajud indicate allegations of sexual assault. while college and universities have a role to play in tackling the issue, we must make sure that we are assigning themselves responsibilities they are capable of performing well. having defended due process for

15 years, fire is convinced that colleges are simply unequipped to serve as investigators and fact findings in these challenging issues. rape is a crime. it should be treated as such. using amateur systems is insulting to victims and disastrous to fundamental fairness. unsurprisingly injustice for both victims and accused is common place. sound public policy requires adjudicating these cases in courts after professional investigations. only courts have the power to take violent predators off the streets. after all, a student who has been ex. peled but not jailed is free to commit rape again. complicating matters further, in the april 4th, 2011 dear colleague letter which did not subject to comment under the administrative procedure act, the agency mandated that institutions adjudicate cases

using the low preponderance of the evidence standard. since issuing the 2011 dcl, ocr conducted 130 investigations. several of which have resulted in settlement agreements. . to the best of fire knowledge, only one investigation is looking into whether the disciplinary process is biassed against the accused. the resulting perception of top down federal bias against the accused is inescapable. i would like to briefly address three bills currently pending before congress. the campus safety act, safe campus act and there are aspects of each that fire supports. on the positive side, all three bills aim to increase the involvement of law enforcement. if our goal is to implement a serious response to a serious problem involving professionals in the criminal justice system is necessary. fire has multiple concerns about casa. it provides no due process protections for the accused.

none. conversely, the safe campus act both include important procedural safeguards that will benefit accused students and complainants alike. what's more, it would repeal the preponderance of the evidence mandate, provide crucial rights to assistance of counsel and require institutions to turn over inculpatory evidence to both sides. to encourage more complaint nants to report to proper authorities, it prohibits institutions for taking action on complaints unless they choose to report the allegation to law enforcement. fire agrees that punitive measures should be waved if they do not report to law enforcement for investigation. we strongly urge congress to amend the language so accommoda accommodations may be made available regardless of the decision to report. while colleges have proven incapable of determining the truth or falsity of accusations, they are well equipped to secure

counselling for victims, provide academic and housing accommodations, secure medical attention and provide general guidance for students as they navigate the criminal justice system. they should perform these regardless of the decision to report the incident. the bill should be amended to encourage them to do so. i provide a detailed analysis of the bills in my written testimony to the committee. to sum up, there's no simple solution to the problem of sexual assault on campus. but low eriering the bar findin guilt and eliminating criminal due process protections by doing that we're creating a system that is impossible for colleges to administer fairly. congress can help reverse the trend by taking all interests into. account. to accomplish that congress should include the aspects of each bill in a comprehensive measure. thank you again for the opportunity to address you and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you very much. i would now like to recognize the chairman of the committee

for five minutes. >> thank you, madame chair, and thank you for holding the hearing. thanks to all the witnesses for being here. i picked up a theme, if i can use that term, when i was listening about complexity. somebody used the word swirl of regulations and a patchwork of regulations and ms. scaduto in her four recommendations, the one says harmonize standards, obligations, expectations under title ix and clery. it does seem to me that it is confusing because you have different statutes with different requirements and i have great confidence that everybody in this room sitting up here, sitting there or

sitting in the gallery, so to speak, wants to find a way to eliminate sexual assaults on campus. and should it occur to make sure that we are holding perpetrators accountable and we are providing support and protection for victims. but it does seem to be complex. so i'll just go to you, ms. scaduto, in part because i lived in carlisle for awhile. it's a a beautiful part of the ko country and of the state and my son graduated from carlisle high school. i've got this tie, i just have to fwo to carlisle. are you concerned that the emphasis that's being placed, the focus that's being placed on complying with these federal laws and regulations detracting from your ability to do what's in the best interest of your

students? >> yes, we are. i think it's a concern shared not only on dickenson's campus on carlisle, but on campuses around the country. if we were able to har mmonize, and we understand that the promulgation of regulations is done with the best of intentions in protecting our students and it's a goal we support. but when we are spending our time trying to harmonize our compliance with the various statutes, it takes away from where i think we as educators excel and that is in educating. and that's on the side of prevention and training that the doctor spoke so eloquently about. when we have different reporting requiremen requirements, for example, under clooer ri and guidance, we have the same group of employees who are interacting with the same students, but we are getting different standards with who

must report and what they must report when they learn of an incident of sexual misconduct. and when that type of analysis detracts from getting the report made and responding to a a student in need, it's problematic. there are ways to improve harmnization such as the notice and comment period that could be used by ocr when it enacts new guidance because even there there's distinct differences between that and the regulations. so yes, the disharmony does prevent complications and take us off the real important work we need to do around this issue. >> thank you very much, i u yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i now recognize the ranking member, mr. scott. >> thank you, madame chairman for calling this hearing on preventing and responding to

sexual assault on college campuses. this issue of campus safety is foremost in the minds of american families as they send their children away to college. congress declared september the national campus safety awareness motto help bring awareness to incidents of campus rape, mass shootings and other forms of violations. congress required institutions to report campus crime statistics and to publish campus safety and security policies. we know the issue of campus sexual assault is complex. nevertheless, once the school knows or reasonably should know of sexual violence it must take immediate and appropriate action to investigate or otherwise determine what occurred. unfortunately, campus sexual assault is usually addressed only after there's an alleged incident. we have to have meaningful

procedures to hold accountable those who commit sexual assaults, but we also must do more to try to prevent them from occurring in the first place. one strategy is to educate young people about healthy and safe relationships before entering college. to teach safe relationships act of 2015 introduced by senator tim kain of virginia would require that health education in public secondary schools include learning not just biology, but also safe relationship behavior aimed at preventing sexual assault, domestic violence and dating violence. currently federal law does not require sex education classes to include information regarding thes relationships, which can prevent sexual assault. there's also a study published in the june 2015 new england journal of medicine that found that college women who participated in an intensive program showing students how to recognize and resist sexual aggression reduced their chance

of being raped by nearly 50% and attempted rape by 62%. we know that funding is also an issue and funding is needed to implement educational programs and robust enforcement of all civil rights laws on campus. over the department of education funding has decreased and flat lined over the years and the staffing level is the lowest it's been in 34 years despite having a record of 10,000 civil rights complaint. we can also do more to train campus public safety personnel and support evidence-based research to strengthen college safety and security and have a clearinghouse for relevant campus public safety information. as an example, the national center for campus public safety in january 2015 conducted its first pilot program offered in a course in rich mondmond, virgin

for training for campus officials including title ix coordinators, legal counsel and others. let me ask just a question to all of the witnesses. some have alluded to some of the things we can do. can the witnesses talk about -- i know we're going to talk about what to do after the fact, but what kind of strategies can can we do before. the fact to reduce the incidents of campus sexual assault? >> that's an excellent question, thank you so much for asking it. working on relationships and students understanding of safe relationships is key. and doing that before they get to college is also important. auw's research shows sexual harassment and bullying is prevalent in k-12 schools starting with preschool. so having conversations about safe relationships, having good curriculum about how to talk about those issues, and also encouraging students to look at themselves as someone who can help, to look at the bystander

intervention kinds of models have been really successful. the cdc studies have shown that when you do relationship education and emphasis on safe and healthy relationships, you do start to erode campus sexual assault. so you do need to start young. it needs to be consistent. it needs to be ongoing. and it's something that we need to get behind. >> are you familiar with senator kain's bill? >> i am familiar with the bill. >> can you make a comment about it? >> it is a bill that auw supports. it's smart to look at this curriculum across the country. right now since we know we have this epidemic of campus sexual assault, starting young is great. doing it in high school is fine, but i would submit you probably need to start in elementary school. >> let me just add briefly that the research is inconclusive because rarely do we have the opportunity to do random assignment of subject to group,

which is where you can get rigorous testing. so more support for research in this area would be useful. we have what we know and what cdc calls promising practices, e don't actually have proven effectiveness. >> thank you, madame chir. >> thank you very much, mr. scott. dr. rue, you mentioned the importance of prevention and education efforts on campus in reducing incidents of sexual assault. do you have written evaluations that you can provide us on the results of those efforts? and, could you give us just a thumbnail of the greatest -- what have had the greatest impact on the campus safety climate from what you have experienced? >> yes, ma'am. thank you for the question. the two most promising practices are bystander intervention training and social norms

training. bystanderer have vengs training, people learn the steps it takes to disrupt or interrupt what locks like it's going to be problematic behavior. the truth is peers are often able to do this but they need the courage to essentially change the code, if you will, of what is agreed upon as acceptable social behavior. this is effective. we haven't had studies so we call a promising practice. the other practice is the social norms practice and what social norms does is look at the gap between what people think and what people think other people think. and it really contributes to thinks such as rape myth and so when you can ask through research does a woman drinking too much suggest that she wants to have sex? you can actually measure that and you'll find that people think other people think that. but they don't think that themselves and so you can go

back to your campus with that gap and combat those norms that are actually creating a hostile environment. >> thank you very much. mr. cohn, in your testimony, you make the important point that rape is a crime and should be treated as such. how could using what you call amateur systems on campus lead to injustice for both victims and accused students? >> thank you for the question, chairwoman foxx. the primary way that the way the status quo works harms both the accused students and the complainants is that we get unreliable findings because the people adjudicated cases don't have the right tools to do it. the same people would be fine on juries are doing -- you have deans of physics departments, english professors and sophomores trying to fig our yut o wut a rape occurred. without forensic evidence, ability to put witnesses under

oath. they're doing it without rules of evidence to make sure that relevant information is included and irrelevant is excluded. the idea that they're going to get it right consistently with all of those limitations is a fantasy. so, the primary thing that we can do is make sure that the -- that we ask people to play a role that they're comp tent to fulfill, one that takes advantage of the skills and what they bring to the table. and works together. and that's what i mean when i say that amateur affects injustices. >> thank you very much. miss scaduto, you mentioned that you're a negotiator and rule making process for implementation. could you tell us a little bit more about that experience and how you believe the funt for stake holders to contribute to the regulations resulted in clear and transparent expectations for schools

specially in contrast to sub regulatory guidance? >> happy to do so, chairwoman foxx. through the negotiated rule making there was a group of i believe 14, 28 with the alternates very much part of the process and we representeddy vur gent points of view. however view being equally committed to dealing with the issue of sexual violence. we had higher education administrators like dr. rue at the table, counsel like me. we had security officers from higher ed. we had survivors and victims of rape. male and female, both represented. we had advocacy groups at the table. and we did very hard work. we came together over a three-month period and we looked at proposed language proffered by the department of education and we had the opportunity to talk about whether we should drill down in a particular area and impose a single standard on

a particular issue, and talk about as dr. rue mentioned earlier, the fact that we need language which is fluid because colleges and universities are so different across this country. large, small, public, private, online, commuter. all those different issues. and it was very difficult work but i am confident that the product we ended up with at the end of that process was a better reflection of the wider community in rules and regulations that work on college campuses than without it. >> thank you very much. mr. hinojosa, recognize you for five minutes. >> thank you. my first question is to miss lisa maatz. you state in your statement that you read to us that current law requires schools to respond to campus sexual assault because a student's civil rights are on the line. you also said that a school's civil rights investigation and

any law enforcement criminal investigation represent parallel and equally necessary paths. can you please explain the parallel tracks of title ix enforcement interact as compared with criminal investigations and why is it so important for the victim to be able to decide whether he or she wants to pursue a criminal investigation as opposed to campus disciplinary process? >> well, i think -- thank you very much for the question. i think there is great confusion between what a criminal process looks like and what the civil rights process is supposed to look like. college campuses are not supposed to be nor will we expect them to be enforcing criminal law. what they're doing is looking at civil rights. has title ix been violated? has a woman in this case been -- has her education been impacted and therefore she can't obviously take advantage of her

civil right to a sex discrimination free education? schools can't send people to jail. you know? schools really look at enforcing student code of conduct. and, you know, before when we were talking about the notion of kind of amateur courts, i do take exception to that on behalf of schools because they have been dealing with their enforcing and the code of conduct. they know how to do that. where there's confusion, i think, when it comes to campus sexual assault schools are supposed to be dealing with the civil rights impact not just on the individual student but how it impacts the campus as a whole and that's different than the criminal proceedings that we have talked about. >> thank you. miss dana scaduto, you said that colleges and universities are very concerned that despite their best efforts to follow applicable laws and guidance,

achieving full compliance is not possible. and you also said proposing creating safe harbors for colleges are not held liable under title ix if they can show good faith efforts to meet the requirements of conflicting provisions. can you help me understand how creating such a safe haven would reduce and help prevent instances of campus sexual assault? >> certainly, mr. hinojosa. it's my privilege to do so. let's take the example, there are a couple of examples i can give you. if you take the ocr guidance, in it, we are supposed to advise a victim of her rights to report. clare uses the language to advise the victim of her right not to report. is there a sbepded difference between those? and when you put those, you take that and you put it up against a

state law where if you take clear ri an you have to advise an individual of her right not to report but there's a state law that mandates reporting of felonies by the institution, have we created a conflict between -- in executing on a plan that everyone wants the same outcome but we have this swirl of differences? and we are not quite sure how to comply with all of them. and in our best efforts to do so, if we err by reporting under the state law when we have cleary telling us to -- advise a victim of a right not to report, provide us with protection and support that if in our best efforts to comply we miss the mark, that we won't be held accountable for penalties or agency action. that's just one example. >> thank you. mr. cohn, time is running out, and as i heard your presentation brought back memories of what is approximately 20 years of

service on this committee. congressman woman patsy mink of hawaii led a group, members of congress, to focus on title ix and there was a mind-set throughout the country, especially from some certain states that wanted that title ix removed or weakened so that it wouldn't be a problem for them. their mind-set, women were not supposed to have the same opportunities in sports. now that we're dealing with this, you talk about allowing schools to set a higher burden of proof in these proceedings could make it more difficult to punish offenders. how does that contribute to making campuses safer? >> i think -- thank you, congressman hinojosa, for the question. i think reliability in outcomes makes campuses safer. and when you reduce the amount of certainty, the fact finders need to hold without providing

them the tools you're not really making campuses safer. at the end of the day, foent forget, someone expelled from a campus is not removed from society. they're still free to walk the streets. the campus isn't safer, either. the truth of the matter is the schools need to not be indifferent to claims. need to make sure to provide the kind of services necessary to make sure that complainants can get an education the next day and not tied necessarily to being a fact finder. >> i want to go on record of disagreeing with you. facilities under investigation right now has doubled, tripled and quadrupled so i think that we really in congress need the address this. >> the ranking member's time has expired. >> i yield back. >> dr. row, you're recognized. >> thank you. thank you for the panel. this is an incredibly complicated, difficult situation. i think probably i'm the only one sitting on the dias except

perhaps dr. heck who's examined women for sexual assault and has testified in court is my lifelong job as a obs trirn gynecologist. it is an incredibly difficult, complicated issue you all are dealing with. miss scaduto, you brought out a couple of points that hit me, requirements we have from the state if i examine a woman in the emergency room, i break the state law if i don't report that. if this is a student. they are in conflict. and i think it puts a great pressure, i mean, on you to know if you oar doing the right thing and i know that -- i'm going to ask mr. cohn in a minute about this. we certainly want to protect the rights of each one but i can tell you i've dealt with patients over decades who have dealt with the consequences of sexual assault and how you deal with it and i mean it changes -- it is life changing. i mean, forever. life changing. so how you deal with this is

incredibly important and i think the start you all made is that early on is education is absolutely the key to prevenon. and i know dr. rue, you mentioned a couple things that intrigued me about how you prevent that and the results i mean, the incidents lowered greatly. i don't know whether the incidents is greater now or just reporting it greater. i have a feeling it's just reporting greater. i think the crime has been there all along. i think it's just been grossly underreported. so a couple of things that i'd like to know is, and i'll start, mr. cohn, with you. is it your absolutely you're right to gather this information, i have done it meticulously before is difficult to do to protect the rights of everything involved. ms. maatz, we are dealing with a civil rights issue and a criminal issue. when do you determine to turn it over? it is a criminal act. >> i think that's really one of

the key questions in this debate is when's the appropriate role of law enforcement here? i'm glad you zoned in on it. at the end of the day, mandatory reporting doesn't require a complainant to cooperate with the investigation but the law enforcement is aware of it to reach out and offer the services that they provide. we know and it's a fact you have 72 hours to get a rape kit done. 48 hours to get blood collected to show whether someone was drugged against their will or perhaps so intoxicated they couldn't have possibly consented. once that time frame elapsed, the window is gone for that physical evidence to help a claim. we believe that everyone will be helped getting the require professionals plugged in as quickly as possible. that's the way to build trust with law enforcement, is to make sure they get the information as fast as possible when they can take the best and strongest actions on behalf of victims and help the falsely accused to have

information recorded quickly, too. it will help everyone. >> we have seen over time where with new dna evidence and new evidentiary things we have had and people have been falsely accused and obviously you want due process for everybody. dr. rue, to you, at wake forest university, what resources do you have for a student, either male or female, after this occurred? i can tell you, as a physician, it's absolutely critical. >> thank you for your question, representative row. i agree with you that it is a life changing event. i have sat with many, many students in that process, both men and women, quite honestly. and it's devastating. we do have 24/7 on-call confidential advisers that are available to go -- wherever the student is. if the student is in the emergency room or if the student is gone to student health.

we have 24/7 student health and we have 24/7 student emts on campus and we have a nice safety net right there. the most critical link is our confidential adviser. this is the person that reaches out and establishes trust. if the first questions someone is asked by their friends are about their own behavior, they are likely to completely shut down. and so, if we can get that person as fast as possible to our confidential adviser who is trauma informed in the counseling techniques and create a bond and then accompany her or him throughout whatever process is, whether it be sitting through a police investigation, whether it be going to the housing department to make room changes or to the academic adviser, and that bond is the most important bond. and it's the most important role on campuses today. >> my time's expired but one other thing for you all to think

about is how can we streamline this so you're not checking boxes but taking care of students? that's where the resources need to be and i see it all the time where all this con flab of things you have to do takes away from the real resource which is taking care of the student and the patient. i yield back. >> i appreciate your commitment. >> thank you, mr. roe. dr. adams, i'd like to recognize you for five minutes. >> thank you very much, chairman foxx, ranking member hinojosa, for holding this important meeting. my thanks also to the witnesses for your testimony and special shout-out to dr. rue from wake forest, partially in my district. campus sexual assault is a very serious issue. it affects entirely too many of our students. and to be clear, even one student is too many. and so, while i believe prevention through education is the best way to combat this growing problem, i appreciate your speaking to that, we must still deal with the incident that is occur. unfortunately, that's nearly

impossible to do with all of the differing ways in which institutions of higher education and law enforcement agencies handle sexual assault and it's becoming more complicated with efforts to weaken title ix. although north carolina has -- does not have a significant number of incidents currently open, the case open at the university of north carolina chapel hill is particularly disturbing and i'm disappointed that there's a case that's open in my city of greensboro at the university of -- at gillford college. i spent 40 years as a faculty member on the campus of bennet college, a small women's college, primarily african-american women in greensboro. i had ongoing concerns then and i still do. and there are many things i could talk about surrounding sexual assault but i want the hone in just for a moment on the affects of women of color. according to the centers for

disease control, approximately 34% of multiracial women, 27% of alaskan native american indian women and 22% of black women and 14.6% of hispanic women are survivors of sexual violence. ms. scaduto and dr. rue, wake forest university is liberal arts institution with pretty good resources i think. can each of you speak to your campus initiatives that address the need for cultural specific prevention, education for your minority students who might be dealing with the weight of other issues like racial discrimination and economic disparities? >> yes, thank you, representative adams. i appreciate your question. we do take our responsibilities to all students very serely. we know one size doesn't fit all. with our african-american students, we have a peer

mentoring program that creates a very tight knit bond with well resourced upper class students and an increasing number of first-generation students, students who didn't attend college and first in the forest programs to help the students navigate, as well. we do try to utilize the best research to understand differential impact and also to get within the peer culture because that's where these things occur. so the use of peer educators is our most important tool. >> thank you. >> i can say that the programs at dickinson are similar. we have specialized training for african-american men in healthy choices and healthy habits called mandatory. we do many of the same things that dr. rue is doing. there's no question but that we can do more. in cultural specific impact. but right now, we are putting in place the issue is so pref veva that the issue is getting all of the students trained, using things like green dot and

healthy relationships and sexuality training on the campuses for all students and i do imagine that as time passes we will become more proficient looking at specific communities and how they're impacted. >> thank you. ms. maatz, do you have any recommendations if colleges with less resources, less staff, are able to provide comprehensive prevention and response? >> well, number one, i would always encourage colleges an universities not reinvent wheel. there's community vftss, rape crisis hotlines, domestic violence shelters to help with prevention programs and confidential advisers which is a great best practice. the other thing i would say, though, specific to women of color is we need to be really sensitive, especially about mandatory reporting. we know that there are issues in terms of gender bias in policing and racial bias in policing and for women of color to mandate to

report to law enforcement is a great to way to ensure they don't report to anybody, that they don't get any help or support. so we need to be culturally competent about that and sensitive and a reason there's a letter to department of justice asking them to create new legislation to deal with the different thing that is women of color are facinging. >> thank you very much. i'm out of time. madame chair, thanks very much. >> thank you, dr. adams. mr. guthrie, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you all for being here. i appreciate it. it's important for us to move forward on this as we have higher ed reforment i'm in the situation, i had a daughter just graduate from college and i have a son in college and before i came here planning our college tour from my senior in high school. my little girl. so when we leave camp and drop them off, those day that is crush us all, and drive away, we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can here and

you're doing everything you can to make sure they're in a safe police and this information is good for us. and you look at harmonizing requirements. i was in state senate and now here that when there's a requirement added or things done, it's because something happened and so we're reacting to something that happened in trying to prevent it moving forward and sometimes you get different bills that happen at different times and different requirements and should be an opportunity to sit down in the higher ed reform and say what is this report trying to accomplish? and what is it trying to prevent? and how can we harmonize them and do them together? that's important to do. ms. scaduto, you talked in your written testimony, i believe, about some of the requirements that established by the administration that don't necessarily comply or difficult to work around -- with nontraditional campuses and students. would you care to talk about how that's difficult? we need a system to take care of

that but we want to see how they make it difficult to comply. >> higher education would greatly appreciate framecorks rather than -- it goes to what dr. rue said earlier. one size fits all. take, for example, the differences in how you -- in training or education of different constituencies on different campuses. let's just take, for example, if it were determined by good research that having students in a chair to receive training on sexual -- on violence prevention is the best method. but you are a commuter campus, you are a community college. or your students don't live there. you don't have the opportunities to reach them outside the classroom as you do on a residential campus f. you're an online school and there was an online school represented in negotiated rule making and her perspective kept popping up. i have to admit i was like, oh, i hadn't thought about that.

we need standards for reaching them rather than a -- other than brightline tests. even a question of what is a student? if you're a -- if a student is taking a class as an adult learner taking a class, that part of the cohort that raises the risk of sexual violence on your campus or is it the 18 to 22-year-olds who live in residence? these are all complexities about the differences in who we are as institutions and how we most effectively reach those who need the information if we're going to engage in cultural change and cultural shift. we have to have the flexibility on the various campuses across this country to reach those different audiences and different ways. >> and, dr. rue, i was going to ask you to elaborate more on your prevention because that's where we want -- we'd love to -- we want to get to zero. we have to have systems because we are not at zero. but elaborate on the preventions you mentioned earlier and then the ones you think are most effective to students.

>> right. i'm going to turn to some work done by the centers for disease control in this and they have nine principles of effective sexual misconduct prevention programs. the first is it's comprehensive, multiple methods, not a one-shot deal with varied teaching strategies. some learn through active engagement. others learn theoretically. others visually. sufficient dosage. opportunity over time to deal with these issues. theory driven. they have a foundation in theory. that they foster positive relationships. they're not focused on whatnot to do but instead what to do. that they're timed to developmentally appropriately. if you're just getting ready to graduate versus just arriving, those needs are different. socially, culturally relevant as representative adams suggested. that we understand the different backgrounds that students bring

to us. and that there's an outcome evaluation as well as well-trained staff. that's what the cdc has. we strive for all of those. i will say that without getting into the curriculum, it is difficult to deliver over long periods of time. we are usually working with a voluntarily workshop format for students and prevention programs and i would say curricular innovations in this area would be welcome. >> thank you. the day you drop them off and drive off campus, like i said, you're crushed and they're leaving home and also excited for them and you want them to have the experience of a lifetime and want it to be safe and secure so thank you so much for that. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. guthrie. ms. davis, you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, madame chair. thank you all for being here today. i appreciate that. we dealt with a lot of campus issues around sexual violence

and i understand that campuses have been dealing with them for many years but in terms of the visibility and the issue, it followed to a certain extent looking at sexual assault in the military. and we introduce add number of bills to try and get at this issue. not so easy and i have a few colleagues here from the armed services committee that know and understand that. one of the things that we have been talking about here which was really critical was the support for victims. men and women. to have access to -- you mentioned a trauma informed but a highly professional individual who really can help victims navigate the system and provide the kind of onyxes available to them that they have, whether it's, you know, reporting or non-reporting and what that

means, actually, for them. so i was just wondering in terms of what you have seen and the campus -- the safe campus act or other acts, are there some that you think actually would make it difficult for a student who chooses not to report to have those services, to receive those services? are there bills that actually do tie the opportunity for victims to be informed by someone who really is highly trained in this area and quite frankly i'm not sure that we're there in terms of the highly trained but at least we know where we have to go with it. anybody want to respond -- do you see that? >> if i can respond real quickly. congresswoman, the safe campus act as the provision that would limit campuses response if a student doesn't respond and f.

immaterial f.i.r.e. is asking for congress to -- on that student's decision. but we do think it's generally a good idea to have campuses make hur that police are investigating so we think it is a good idea to limit the punitive responses that a school can make. >> i'm going to respectfully disagree. >> yeah? >> yeah. we know that -- again, that ability to navigate to that confidential victim support person is the most critical thing. and if universities are mandated to report criminally we know it's going to have a chilling effect on people even getting to the very first resource to help. the truth is people do -- most students do not want to go through a law enforcement interview. our experience teaches us that cops look for violence for signs of struggle, for weapons. they don't understand the nuance

of campus sexual assault. they tend to minimize. if you have read the boom missoula it is a beautiful picture of what happens when individuals report in that setting, the kind of questions they're asked, the doubt that's cast upon them and again it has a chilling effect and it causes many to shut down. so i can't support it. >> ms. maatz, the harmonizing issue that we mentioned earlier in terms of how universities, how institutions deal with this. >> well, i think the mandatory reporting absolutely has chilling effect. i think if you're looker a way to have students not report just to the school and law enforcement, make it mandatory. part of what we're trying to do with title ix and the cleary act is create an environment on campus that supports reporting. if it's going to be supportive of students it needs to be helpful to them. and that kind of reporting not only helps that individual student and setting the tone on campus in terms of creating a safe -- >> i think what's important

about that, as well the s.o.s. act i authored with snofr boxer basically has i think actually brought about a number of special advocates onti:jz campu and university of california system and others and i think you've mentioned many schools have them. i think the real -- >> thank you for that. >> -- key for that is the level of training and military system, as well, the fact that people generally become more knowledgeable about this process which has been a very well-kept secret in the past and is i think has contributed to the fact that it's a fearful system and that's what we're trying to get away from. >> that's right. >> thanks to your work on the military, our rotc programs are among the best partnerless now. they are part of our sexual misconduct working group helping in lock step with their training resources and it's a great partnership. >> thank you. >> thank you, ma dram chair.

>> thank you. dr. heck, you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, madame chair. thank you all for being here and discussing this critically important topic. like the gentle lady of california, i was struck by the similarities of campuses and experiencing within the military which in and of itself experiencing an epidemic of military sexual assault. and both dr. rue and ms. scaduto, in the comments you talked about things similar, not straight forward or easy to resolve, doesn't involve force of strangers. word on word conflicts. may not be reported for days, weeks, months. where the suivor has a right to choose a path in the wake of an incident, some reporting"ds÷ campus or some to law enforcement, similar to the military unrestricted and restricted reports and in a restricted report it is not referred to law enforcement but allows the victim to take part of the supportive services

needed to help them heal. has there been any review of what perhaps might be best practices developed within the military? realizing that we are not fully there yet either. but any best practices implemented in the military l's response? >> i'd have to say, i need to learn more about what they have done an i'm eager to do so. thank you for that referral. >> i think, dr. heck, a thing i would say is that we have seen an increase in the reporting. in the military. and part of the reason for that is because the conversation is being had because there is now a top down as well as a bottom up kind of conversation being had and there's trainin going on and that makes all the difference in the world. the prevention is key and i think those are all good lessons to use for campus sexual assault. >> thank you. >> i don't know enough about the military practice to weigh in on there but i can say is that one interesting parallel is that last year we heard a lot of

chatter about how the military tribunal should not be adjudicating the matters with the potential for bias there and instead removed to civil courts. essentially the same argument i'm making to you today which is that campuses maybe not adjudicating the facts with the potential for bias and conflicts of interest instead and relying on professionals and courts. >> thank you. a question for my own edification. so if a victim on a campus chooses not to report to law enforcement, but comes to the campus authorities to resoouf the supportive services, does that automatically result in that case going forward for a disciplinary hearing on a college campus? >> no, it does. the best guidance we get on dealing effectively with survivors of sexual assault tells us that they need the control to decide how to go -- if they want to go forward, when

they want to go forward and how they want to go forward. although the guidance is inconsistent, we get guidance both from orc and under the regs that mandate that we give them the options and tell them. an it's funny as i listened to the conversation from congresswoman davis and others about the use of report, it's banging around in my head because we use report very specifically on campuses. and a report means someone comes forward and telling someone. that's a report. and that's it at its essence. and if they do that, then we wrap our arms around them as a community and make sure they get the resources they want, they know their options and if they want confidential reporting we can direct them in that. if they come to us and they tell us, that report does not move forward under most circumstances whether it's internally through our conduct processes or erks ternlly but law enforcement or both without their consent and

participation. there are exceptions. as you can expect, i mean, you're lawmakers. you know there are exceptions. if we have an ongoing threat to our community, we might have to move forward without the consent of the person who brought the report forward. and that also is an example of why safe harbors are important. if we're being guided by the wishes of the victim, but we have an ongoing threat on our campus and we make that decision to move forward, being protected from action by administrative agencies would be helpful. >> great. so as a father of three, one who -- a daughter a graduate of college, a daughter a junior your and a son that started the freshman year, i thank you for what you're trying to do to make the campuses a safer place. thank you. i yield back. >> thank you, dr. hex. plmpbt desaulier, you're next. >> thank you for having the hering.