Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Last week, we told you about a call for American
educators to do more to protect students from sexual
violence on campus. The government recently sent a
letter telling schools, colleges and universities
that such violence is a form of sex discrimination.
That means it violates a nineteen seventy-two law
against discrimination on the basis of sex in
education programs and activities. The letter says
schools must take steps like making sure victims
know their rights and are kept informed about
investigations. Victims must also be protected if
the accused attacker is still in school with them.
Russlyn Ali is the assistant secretary for civil
rights at the Department of Education. She and her
staff wrote that letter. "Our sense of urgency could
not be greater," she says. "I'm sure any parent in
America would say they don't want their child to go
to college or school and have to be worried about
being raped. And we are going to work with officials
to make sure that doesn't happen." One of those
officials is Mary Mayhew. She leads efforts to
prevent sexual harassment and rape at the University
of New Hampshire. That was where Vice President Joe
Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan released
the guidance letter in April. Ms. Mayhew says she
believes sexual violence on campuses has actually
decreased over the past twenty years. She says
schools are getting better at educating students to
understand the idea of consent -- or, put more
simply, that no means no. She says: "Between
nineteen eighty-eight and two thousand was when we
really started implementing education campaigns
about what consent is ... and that did amount to
some degree of prevention." Ms. Mayhew says the
warning from the government to pay more attention to
the problem might lead more schools to start or
expand their programs. At the same time, however, it
might also lead to an increase in reports of sexual
assaults. Not necessarily because the problem has
gotten worse, she says, but because more students
will know their rights and be willing to report
attacks on campus. Russlyn Ali at the Education
Department says the government is ready to take
action against schools that fail to protect their
students. She says: "Where there are violations, and
in the case where officials are not willing to
comply with the nation's civil rights laws, we will
enforce the laws vigorously." For VOA Special
English, I'm Carolyn Presutti. If you want to read
that nineteen-page letter, go to
voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
