Among the more mind-blowing policy provisions of Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed biennial budget is a provision that would eliminate the requirement that universities report the number of sexual assaults that take place on their campuses.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s proposed budget—which would cut $300 million dollars out of the state’s beloved public university system—has a non-fiscal bombshell tucked in between its insane pages.
Under Walker’s budget, universities would no longer have to report the number of sexual assaults that take place on a campus to the Department of Justice. Under Walker’s plan, university employees who witness a sexual assault would no longer have to report it.
There are no policy recommendations in Walker’s budget how or what would replace these reporting mechanisms. The Governor simply instructs that they should be deleted.
I’d say Scott Walker should be ashamed of himself, but it’s clear at this point that the man has absolutely no shame at all.
Zach, thanks very much for covering this. Clery Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clery_Act still requires reporting on the federal level, but enforcement is still abysmal. Plenty of coaches and administrators at Penn State knew about Jerry Sandusky’s rapes in the Penn State football team’s showers. None of them was even indicted, much less did jail time.
Your comment regarding the actions of the Penn State administration are erroneous. Graham Spanier, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz were indicted in November 2011 for the alleged cover up of the case, but three years later that case is still pending and will likely be dismissed for lack of evidence.
What I see most from people who mention the case is a reflection of the media narrative the quickly developed in November 2011 which, unfortunately, does not jibe with the facts. Analysts from both inside and outside the university community and from both sides of the political spectrum have been reporting since then, and I provide two examples here. These are not the end-all-be-all of the case, but should get you started.
http://onwardstate.com/2015/01/20/an-open-letter-to-keith-olbermann/
http://framingpaterno.com/sites/default/files/Perfect%20Sense%20January%202015.pdf
If you want to stand by your comment, then you must refute every single point raised by these authors. It will take a long time.
Rich,
My comment referenced the Clery Act, which is federal. Your indictments are state.
If you knew anything about college football, you wouldn’t have written such a ridiculous comment.
In ’99 Sandusky was considered on of the premier defensive coordinators in college football. Why did he stop coaching after ’99? Why didn’t anyone else hire him?
JC is right that this hurts men and children too. I see it as further proof – as if we need it – of Walker’s naked ambition. He is signaling to the most extreme elements of the Republican Party with this one.
And until the recent court ruling, supporting of the rights of the Solidarity Singers, free speech was suppressed by ruling to change the jurisdiction from municipal courts to the state justice department. Physical assault, not as important anymore I guess.
Looking for the quote from the military veteran yesterday, criticizing Walker’s comparing protestors to terrorists, who said Walker is delusional. Heard it on WPR.
Maybe an attorney could let us know the rules for requesting a dangerous individual be committed to psychiatric evaluation and confinement. Recollections of three people swearing statements of incidents was all that is needed.
“Maybe an attorney could let us know the rules for requesting a dangerous individual be committed to psychiatric evaluation and confinement.”
Not to worry. Folks with WDS tend to confine themselves on fringe blogs.
Denis, you’re right about Walker-defense syndrome, glad you finally saw the light.
John Peterson had the statement about 20 seconds in:
http://democurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2015/02/media-false-equivalency-walkers-isis.html
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/2015/02/27/walker-plan-would-drop-uw-sex-assault-report-mandate/24119455/
” The University of Wisconsin requested that Gov. Scott Walker remove a requirement that all 26 campuses report allegations of sexual assaults to the state every year because it already submits similar information to the federal government, a UW spokesman said Friday.
The proposal to delete the annual reports to the state Department of Justice is among dozens of requirements that would be removed as part of Walker’s plan to decouple the university from most state laws and state oversight. Though the budget proposal came out earlier this month, the sex assault request was explained in a summary released Thursday by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
UW System spokesman Alex Hummel said Friday that the university requested the change because information given to the state is duplicative of data required to be reported to the U.S. Department of Education under federal law. The university also posts the information on its website.
The governor’s plan also calls for cutting out information about sexual assaults from orientation programs for new and existing UW students at all campuses, as well as removing the requirement that any employee who witnesses an assault or is told by a student that they’ve been assaulted report that information to the dean of students.
“Student education and mandatory reporting are important practices also built in, and those practices are going to continue on our campuses,” Hummel said in an email. “We are not lessening our commitment here or at our institutions one iota.”
To read the rest, click on the link.
Thank you for the good follow up information. I don’t see why the state would want to divest of oversight of a critical issue impacting our state university system. I am even more amazed that it was proposed by a supposed pro-state’s rights governor. Why not streamline the process so you report the data in the same manner to both entities? Cutting the data out of orientation and letting employees off the hook from reporting responsibilities are both incredibly disturbing. The UW System’s spokesperson tries hard to reassure us that their self-regulation will be sufficient – yeah, right.
Oh, and check out political reporter Dave on Twitter shmpathetically re-tweeting Right Wisconsin’s blog post on this topic. Talk about a miss for someone who is often a quite decent liberal pundit.
Why don’t you guys check your resources. The daily beat has already had to retract their story regarding this… I’m not surprised that you Apollo on this blog didn’t actually read and understand that this has NOTHING to do with walkers budget.
John H. just LOVES the federal government. No “states rights” for you!
The Beast made a mistake on the total elimination of reporting requirements, but the rwnjs deliberately lie and fail to mention the part of the topic about cutting the sexual assault data out of student orientation and letting employees off the hook from reporting responsibilities.
We can assuredly assume that rw won’t clarify that portion of their omission of the facts.
On the bright side, someone appears to be getting closer to understanding that quite a bit of walker’s budget has nothing to do with fiscal matters. An actual person would know this, an newly created alias might have missed it. Friendly reminder to recent historical record on Scott the weasel.