The Student Government Association will vote this month on a bill of rights aimed at bolstering support resources for sexual assault survivors and organizing public information on Title IX policies.
Aly McCormick, the co-president of Students Against Sexual Assault and the co-sponsor of the Survivors Bill of Rights — an SGA resolution to support survivors of sexual assault and harassment on campus — said the legislation would help consolidate information on University resources into one document to distribute to survivors of sexual assault through Title IX office email communications. She said if the resolution passes at the Nov. 18 SGA Senate meeting, Title IX officials will include the bill of rights in emails they send to students who file a report, condensing resources on campus counseling, off-campus support initiatives and information about access to medical resources like emergency contraceptives and rape kits.
McCormick said at American University, which she attended for two years before transferring to GW in 2023, she helped the student government develop a similar bill of rights as speaker of their senate and was inspired to create the legislation at GW after hearing students express a general “confusion” about resources available to sexual assault survivors. In her campaign for SGA vice president last spring, McCormick said if elected she would implement the bill of rights at GW.
“Survivors of sexual assault, when they’re going to reach out for help, have already been through enough,” McCormick said. “I feel like adding extra work for them by having to research everything themselves is too much, it was too much for me when I was going through my process.”
SGA Sen. Sophie Leinenkugel (ESIA-U), who endorsed the resolution, said the legislation would ask the Title IX office to annually update trainings like the required first-year online session to ensure they align with nationwide Title IX policies. She said although all GW students are required to complete a Title IX training, the resources are not always updated to reflect recent policy changes.
“If you’ve been affected by it, and you’ve been a survivor of sexual harassment, assault, and you’re seeing this out-of-date training that the University isn’t staying up to date with that, it can be so, so infuriating,” Leinenkugel said.
Leinenkugel said once the resolution passes in the SGA Senate, she hopes senators and SGA committees like the Community, Advocacy and Inclusion Committee will continue to put forward legislation and other “women-led initiatives” to further on-campus support for survivors and supplement the bill of rights.
“What we can do in the SGA is make sure that we are having groups such as the women’s caucus, the gender equity group, the Community, Advocacy and Inclusion Committee, making sure that we all have legislation, bills that go on the senate floor as well that make some of the things within the piece of legislation, within the survivors Bill of Rights happen,” Leinenkugel said.
SGA Senate Pro Tempore Liz Stoddard, who sponsored the resolution, said she can “guarantee” the SGA Senate will pass the bill of rights at its Nov. 18 meeting because fellow senators already demonstrated support during discussions at the first women’s caucus last month and other senate committee meetings. Stoddard presented the resolution at the Oct. 24 virtual senate meeting but ultimately tabled the legislation so senators could discuss the bill in person this month.
“We wanted it to have proper public comment and proper voice, and we wanted it to have its day of passage, if that makes sense, and not be bogged down by low attendance or lack of community engagement,” Stoddard said.
Stoddard said she believes through the resolution’s display of the SGA’s urgency and advocacy on the issue, the resolution will place “pressure” on the Title IX office to comply with legal guidelines and further communicate to students about the support measures available to them. She added that because of the SGA’s “limited” power to influence administration to alter University policy, there are no binding requirements within the legislation that will ensure a response from the University.
She said Fitzgerald and Lynne have had “conversations” and fostered a “good relationship” this semester with officials from the Title IX office and officials from campus “accountability agencies” like the Office of Advocacy and Support that lead them to believe the University will be “receptive” to adopting the bill of rights. She said, however, the SGA holds no “legal binding power” over administration to ensure cooperation between the bodies once the senate passes the resolution.
“Although they have been so receptive, that also means we put the onus at their doorstep,” Stoddard said. “Now, we have done our job as student advocates, to advocate for this, to protect students who are experiencing this, and now, as recipients of this receipt, you have to act on the things that you promised.”
Stoddard said the resolution also places an emphasis on “outside investigation” and options like contacting the Metropolitan Police Department instead of the GW Police Department about an assault to allow students to decide which department they want involved. The Title IX website currently offers GWPD as a reporting option, “local emergency response” and clarifies that police are only contacted if the student who filed the report wishes to contact law enforcement.
“It recommits us to giving people a lot of options, and that’s something that I think Aly was purposeful with and that I believe is important and essential is that your resources can’t just be GW,” Stoddard said.
Zoe Larkey, a junior and the president of GW’s chapter of It’s On Us — a national organization dedicated to student-led sexual assault prevention on college campuses — said faults within GW’s Title IX office don’t stem from a lack of resources or support from the University but a lack of overall student awareness about options they have to receive counseling without filing a report or contacting law enforcement.
GW’s Title IX website provides students with options for reporting incidents of sexual assault or harassment including an online report or contacting the office directly through a phone call or email. The website also lists GWPD and MPD as resources under a separate tab on the website.
“In general, people don’t know that the resources exist, and they also don’t know what they’re entitled to by the federal government,” Larkey said.
She said many students are not aware that they can receive counseling and psychological support from the Title IX office without filing a formal complaint and contacting law enforcement. Larkey added that many students “stray away” from seeking help from the University because they assume the police department will always be involved if they file a report with the Title IX office and she hopes the passage of the bill of rights will clarify the process to students.
“People think that they’re always going to involve the police and that getting justice always looks like going to the police office and getting a court date, and that’s not always true,” Larkey said.
Larkey said peer education and advocacy is crucial when it comes to Title IX training and sexual assault prevention in general because students are the most “receptive” to information when it comes from their peers who go through similar experiences to them as college students.
“I don’t think that it’s possible for someone in the Title IX department to fully understand what it’s like to be at GW’s campus and get assaulted and have to go through the Title IX process here,” Larkey said. “I think that students have the power, and should have the power.”
