At the urging of University of California student survivors and activists, the UC President’s Task Force on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Violence and Sexual Assault produced a mandated recommendation for all UC campuses to have a confidential and privileged advocate on each campus. This confidential and privileged advocate is essentially a one-stop shop for survivors to go to for information about reporting options, counseling, support through the reporting process and accommodations to ensure their continued education – from changing classes, to finding new housing, to financial aid. The California State University system followed suit with its own promise to create such an office on each campus. For UC and CSU student survivors, the promise of this advocate office was a dream come true.
Unfortunately, there are now attempts to undermine the work and wishes of student activists, and, shockingly, they’re coming from a would-be ally – the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault. At the prompting of CALCASA, California State Senator Connie Leyva has introduced Senate Bill 668, which would change the definition of a “sexual assault counselor,” making universities unable to employ their own confidential and privileged advocates without contracting out to a local rape crisis center. For those who may be confused on why or how a sexual assault coalition would not listen to student survivors’ wishes, it’s important to provide context.
CALCASA is considered a coalition or network of rape crisis centers around the state. It receives funding from various funding sources, including each rape crisis center’s membership to the coalition, as well as federal and state grants. It has a financial incentive to make sure student survivors go to rape crisis centers rather than on-campus advocates, like the ones recommended by the task force.
Under the guise of helping survivors, CALCASA has pushed forward SB 668, which would eliminate the University’s ability to employ a “confidential and privileged” advocate and require universities to contract the position to a local rape crisis center or its own coalition, ensuring increased revenue for CALCASA. Its intentions are obvious to student survivors and activists: it wants to make money off the surge in attention on campus sexual assault. It’s especially ironic, since CALCASA held a “Student Summit on Sexual Assault” in April 2014 to ask for student input on policy changes and improvements for campuses, and one of the recommendations in its report from students was, “campuses should ensure that safe, confidential services are available.”
The inclusion of the words “confidential and privileged” in the UC’s mandate for an advocate’s office are not superfluous, but rather necessities to ensure the utmost care and legal assurance for survivors. “Confidentiality” ensures that if a survivor says the name of his or her perpetrator or details about an assault, the advocate will not be forced to report. This is huge, as many university employees are “mandated reporters,” including some professors, resident assistants, teaching assistants and staff. As mandated reporters, they have a legal obligation to report a sexual assault even if the survivor didn’t want to report or didn’t know the person they were talking to was a mandated reporter.
“Privilege” is important as well, as it makes all conversations between the advocate and survivor “privileged.” In the case of a lawsuit, those conversations cannot be used in court as evidence against the survivor, no matter who requests the information.
Student survivors and activists have spoken loud and clear. We need an on-campus advocate to ensure the mental, emotional, financial and academic welfare of student survivors, and the University of California and California State University systems have listened and promised to create such an office. We are proud of our universities and know these offices will serve for the betterment of student survivors. However, we are saddened to see CALCASA, a prominent and progressive sexual assault coalition, betray the wishes of student survivors. We hope CALCASA and Senator Connie Leyva will reconsider the bill, listen to student survivors and activists and not stand in the way of the creation of an advocate office – an asset students have been working tirelessly to create.
Badalich is the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council Student Wellness commissioner. Broder is a UC Berkeley Associated Students of the University of California senator.