Student Union
- By Bruce Alpert
Education Secretary Reviewing Sexual Assault Policies
The settlement follows a complaint by former student Paul Nungesser of Germany, who said the New York school allowed a student to carry a mattress around the university, accusing Nungesser of being a rapist.
This happened, Nungesser’s lawyers said, even though Nungesser was cleared by Columbia of wrongdoing.
Columbia University said Nungesser’s time at Columbia had “became very difficult for him and not what Columbia would want any of its students to experience.” Columbia said Nungesser is now attending a film school in Germany.
The woman who accused Nungesser of rape had charged Columbia of being “more concerned about their public image than keeping people safe.”
Announcement of the Columbia settlement comes as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos decides how to balance the interests of sexual assault victims against those accused of sexual assault.
DeVos says she is considering changing federal rules established by the Obama administration to enforce a law known as Title IX that covers sexual assaults at American colleges.
“We need to get this right. We need to protect all students. And we need to do it quickly,” she told reporters last week. “It’s obvious the toll this places on everyone involved.”
Demonstrators warn about weakening rules
Maya Weinstein, 23, and others demonstrated outside the Education Department last week as DeVos met with sexual assault victims and people who said they were falsely accused of sexual assault.
Weinstein said she was raped by a fellow student during her first year at George Washington University in Washington D.C.
“It is interesting to me how sexual assault is viewed as a different issue than any other crime,” Weinstein told VOA. “The false reporting statistics are comparable to that of someone saying they were robbed and we don’t question those who come forward to say they were robbed.”
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, between two percent and eight percent of sexual assault charges are false, comparable to other crimes.
Devos, who was named education secretary by President Donald Trump, has said rules established by the Obama administration might not protect the rights of people falsely accused. She spoke about her “listening session” on July 13 with students who say they were falsely accused.
“It was clear that their stories have not often been told, and that there are lives that have been ruined and lives that are lost in the process,” she said.
But DeVos also said sexual assault is a serious problem.
“We can’t go back to the days when allegations were swept under the rug,” DeVos said, meaning failing to fully investigate charges of sexual assault.
Alyssa Peterson said she was a victim of sexual assault while a student at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. Like many victims, she decided not to bring charges against her attacker because she was not confident the process would be fair.
A 2015 report by the Association of American Universities (AAU) said that half of college students did not report incidents of sexual assault because they did not think it was "serious enough." Others said they were embarrassed or thought "nothing would be done."
AAU is an organization that studies issues of higher education.
Even with the stronger Obama administration guidelines, punishment for sexual assault remain weak, Peterson said. She said few students are removed from college for sexually assaulting fellow students. Peterson is a Yale University law school student and working with a group, Know Your Title IX, which supports student victims of sexual assault.
Official apologizes for comments
Just before last week’s listening session, Candice Jackson, the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, apologized for remarks she had made about sexual assault.
Jackson told The New York Times that 90 percent of sexual assault charges involve two drunken students and a student deciding “our last sleeping together was not quite right.”
“What I said was flippant, and I am sorry,” Jackson said, adding that she was a rape victim.
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The California Legislature on Thursday voted to give prospective college students more time to apply for two of the state's largest financial aid programs after a glitch in the federal government's application system threatened to block up to 100,000 people from getting help.
California had already extended the deadline for its financial aid programs from March 2 to April 2. On Thursday, the state Senate gave final approval to a bill that would extend it again until May 2. The bill now heads to Governor Gavin Newsom.
"Clearly, our students need our help," Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from Riverside who authored the bill, told lawmakers during a public hearing earlier this week.
California has multiple programs to help people pay for college. The biggest is the Cal Grant program, which gives money to people who meet certain income requirements. The state also has a Middle Class Scholarship for people with slightly higher incomes.
Students can apply for these state aid programs only if they first complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as FAFSA.
This year, a computer glitch prevented parents from filling out the form if they did not have a Social Security number. That meant many students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents but whose parents are not were blocked from completing the form and thus could not apply for California's aid programs.
California has a large population of adults who are living in the country without legal permission. The California Student Aid Commission, the state agency in charge of California's financial aid programs, estimates as many as 100,000 students could be affected by this glitch.
The U.S. Department of Education says it fixed the problem last week, but those families are now a step behind. Democrats in Congress raised alarms last month, noting that the delay could particularly hurt students in states where financial aid is awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, including Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Oregon and Texas.
Advocates fear that the chaos of this year's process could deter students from going to college at all, especially those for whom finances are a key part of the decision.
The computer glitch is just one part of larger problems affecting FAFSA.
The notoriously time-consuming form was overhauled in 2020 through a bipartisan bill in Congress. It promised to simplify the form, going from 100 questions to fewer than 40, and it also changed the underlying formula for student aid, promising to expand it to more low-income students.
But the update has been marred by delays, leaving families across the country in limbo as they figure out how much college will cost.
The form is typically available to fill out in October, but the Education Department didn't have it ready until late December. Even then, the agency wasn't ready to begin processing the forms and sending them to states and colleges, which only started to happen this month.
The problems appear to have already reduced California's application numbers. Through March 8, the number of California students who had completed FAFSA was 43% lower than it was at the same time last year.
"The data most concerning me seems to suggest that these drops are more acute at the schools that serve low-income students or large populations of students of color," Jake Brymner, deputy chief of policy and public affairs for the California Student Aid Commission, told lawmakers in a public hearing earlier this week.
The issue has caused problems for colleges and universities, too. The University of California and California State University systems both delayed their admissions deadlines because so many prospective students were having trouble with FAFSA.