Trump administration announces initiative to address sexual assault in schools

The Trump administration has announced an initiative to address the increasing number of sexual assaults in public schools.

"We hear all too often about innocent children being sexually assaulted by an adult at school," Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Wednesday. “That should never happen. No parent should have to think twice about their child's safety while on school grounds.”

DeVos said the initiative will address sexual-misconduct complaints in grades K through 12 and be led by the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which will strengthen schools and school districts’ authority to respond to all incidents of sexual harassment and assault. 

The initiative will address student-on-student and staff-on-student misconduct and will bolster the department’s authority to enforce Title IX -- which requires schools and their districts to take the appropriate measures to address sex discrimination. 

DeVos pointed to an agreement last year with Chicago Public Schools as an example of how the department, with the support of its civil rights office, can address the issue of sexual misconduct in schools.

The agreement requires the school district to make significant changes to protect students from sexual assault and abuse, after the department and civil rights office concluded the district violated Title IX in addresses two such incidents.

The department reports roughly 9,700 incidents of sexual assault, rape or attempted rape reported in public elementary and secondary schools in the 2015-2016 school year, citing the most recent data available from its civil rights office.

The major steps in the new initiative include:

• A nationwide compliance reviews to examine how schools and districts handle sexual assault cases under Title IX.
• A public awareness and support campaign.
• A proposal to collect more detailed data on sexual assault that would include incidents perpetrated by school staff or school personnel. 

“I applaud Secretary DeVos and her department for undertaking new efforts to better protect schoolchildren, said Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. “Parents deserve to know that when their kids go to school each day, they are going to be in a safe environment where they will not be preyed upon."