To the Editor of The Daily:

I was surprised and disappointed to read my law school colleague Bob Weisberg’s letter to the editor concerning a presentation by the Stanford Association of Students for Sexual Assault Prevention (Stanford ASAP) during Parents’ Weekend. Prof. Weisberg criticized this student organization, its parent education event, my presentation at the event, as well as The Daily’s coverage of the event and of the whole issue of sexual assault at Stanford.

Unfortunately, Prof. Weisberg did not attend this event, and didn’t request any of the materials presented before writing his lengthy critique. He has also mischaracterized comments reported in The Daily, perhaps because of his absence. In any case, had he attended the event he would have heard a detailed discussion of many of the very points that he claims were omitted. The slides from the presentation are available here.

To give one example, Prof. Weisberg states flatly that I “left unsaid” the reason that Prof. Weisberg and members of the Provost’s Sexual Assault Task Force decided to narrow the definition of sexual assault in October 2014 to exclude sexual battery, and that I failed to describe the range of sanctions and penalties available under our policies for sexual misconduct and assault. But, in fact, I discussed those subjects in detail, and included them in the slides linked above.

Turning to substance, Prof. Weisberg defends the Task Force’s decision to narrow the definition of assault by saying that sexual battery is still considered misconduct at Stanford for which perpetrators can be punished, including by expulsion. But, in fact, only one student has been expelled for sexual assault in Stanford’s history, and none have been expelled for misconduct. As Prof. Weisberg, an expert in criminal law, knows well, the fact that the sanction is available in theory does not mean it is implemented in fact. At Stanford it has not been.

More importantly, Prof. Weisberg’s defense of the Task Force’s decision misses the point of student and faculty objections. Stanford is nearly alone among our peer schools in excluding sexual battery from its most serious category of sexual offense (called “sexual assault” by most schools). Many student survivors feel that labeling sexual battery as “misconduct” rather than “assault” minimizes its seriousness. Many of these acts are, after all, felonies. I (along with many other faculty members) have serious reservations about the decision of Prof. Weisberg and the Task Force to reduce sexual battery from assault to misconduct. In my view, the claim in the climate survey that only 1.9 percent of Stanford students had been sexually assaulted, when most of our peer schools report rates 10 times as high, should give us all pause about this redefinition.

Prof. Weisberg made many of the same points he makes in his letter to the editor, at greater length, in a response he wrote to a joint faculty letter providing feedback on Stanford’s new Title IX process. In that letter, which I signed with four other faculty members (including two female professors who served alongside Professor Weisberg on the Sexual Assault Task Force), we expressed concerns about Stanford’s new, narrowed definition of “sexual assault,” as well as the new requirement that all findings of sexual offenses must be by a unanimous three-person panel — a requirement shared by only one other school (Duke) out of 30 peer schools. I subsequently responded to him, addressed all of his concerns, and invited him to contact us and engage in further dialogue with those members of the community who have concerns about the new process. While we have not yet had that dialogue, I trust that he, like all of my colleagues in the Stanford community, share the objective of eliminating sexual violence and sexual harassment at Stanford, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to engage in that conversation in the near future.

Sincerely,

Michele Landis Dauber

 

Michele Dauber is Frederick I. Richman Professor of Law and Professor (by courtesy) of Sociology. She formerly served as faculty chair of the Board on Judicial Affairs from 2011-13 and helped to reform Stanford’s sexual assault disciplinary and Title IX processes. She has been a national advocate for increased transparency by universities in their handling of sexual assault and dating violence.