CA Health Report: How Colleges Are Supporting Students Leaving Abusive Relationships

July 28. 2020

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ERA Senior Staff Attorney for Education Equity & Litigation Brenda Adams is featured in today’s California Health Report speaking about schools’ legal requirement to protect students from intimate partner violence, including dating violence and sexual assault.

She is quoted commenting on college’s often inadequate responses to reports of intimate partner violence, as well as the Trump Administration’s changes to Title IX, which are harmful to students nationwide, especially those who’ve survived sexual violence.

There’s just a fundamental lack of understanding” among school officials, Adams says. “[It] results in a poor response that harms these victims even further, pushes them out of school, actively silences them, and ultimately denies them their rights to equal access to education.”

"The Department of Education has made it clear that its primary goal is to save money, not to help students,” Adams said. “Rather than addressing the problem of rampant sexual violence in our schools, Sec. DeVos instead chose to ‘solve’ the problem by restricting the number of complaints that can be filed and investigated. — Brenda Adams, Senior Staff Attorney

Read the full article here.