Daily Bruin – Page 163

Researchers discover gene suppressing stroke and brain injury recovery

UCLA researchers discovered that a gene could suppress stroke recovery and traumatic brain injury recovery.

Stanley Carmichael, the chair of the neurology department, and Alcino Silva, a psychology professor, found that blocking the function of the CCR5 gene leads to better cognitive and motor skill recovery after a stroke or traumatic brain injury.

“We have recognized for a long time that the process for recovery for stroke looks a lot like the process of forming new memories,” Carmichael said.

Silva said CCR5 acts as a suppressor during the formation of new memories to stop the brain from remembering every detail.

“You don’t want to remember everything that you see. You only remember those things that are important. Otherwise, you clutter your brain, and when you want to get the stuff you actually need, it would take longer to get there,” Silva said. “So your brain makes a point of just remembering those things that you judged to be critical for you.”

Carmichael said CCR5 is expressed at very high levels during a stroke and blocks stroke recovery.

In the study, researchers inhibited the CCR5 gene in mice using two different approaches. In the first method, researchers completely stopped the gene from being expressed, while in the second, they blocked its activity by using Maraviroc, a drug known to silence the gene and treat certain types of HIV.

Carmichael said they simulated strokes in mice by cutting off blood supply to areas of the brain normally affected by strokes in humans. The mice with the nonfunctional CCR5 genes recovered their motor skills and cognitive functions better than those that expressed the gene. The mice that took the drug also recovered better. However, they didn’t recover as well as the mice that didn’t express CCR5.

He said most recovery from stroke happens in the first three months. After six months, recovery slows down.

He added the first three months after a stroke is a sensitive period in which recovery and changes to the brain can occur. However, after that period, the recovery process becomes slower.

Silva said the researchers would give the drug to the patient a few weeks after they had a stroke in order to help trigger recovery at the right time.

Carmichael said they studied how the lack of the CCR5 gene affected stroke recovery in humans by collaborating with Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University, which conduct research on strokes and traumatic brain injury.

He said they studied Ashkenazi Jews recovering from strokes and traumatic brain injury because many of them do not have the CCR5 gene.

Einor Ben Assayag, a neurology professor at Tel Aviv University, said they compared data from patients with and without the gene and found that the patients who did not have the CCR5 gene recovered better than patients who did have the gene.

Carmichael said they are currently starting clinical trials with Maraviroc. Silva added their research can potentially help millions of people affected by strokes.

“Stroke is one of the principal causes for long-term disability in the Western world, and right now, all we can do about stroke is limited to the next few hours proceeding a stroke,” he said.

Project targets alcohol-related issues on campus and in Westwood community

UCLA students and staff are banding together with members of the Westwood community to address alcohol-related issues such as alcohol poisoning.

The Westside Impact Project is an informal collaboration between Westwood residents and UCLA to address alcohol-related problems on campus and in the surrounding area.

According to a press release published by the WSIP, the project aims to utilize evidence-based strategies to lessen the consequences of alcohol consumption, which include negative impacts on academic performance, diminished capacity to make well-reasoned decisions and alcohol poisoning.

The project is directed by the Institute for Public Strategies and funded by the Los Angeles County Department of Substance Abuse Prevention and Control. Maurina Cintron, a prevention coordinator at the IPS, said the WSIP has evaluated the Westwood area for two years and has found that of nine UC campuses, UCLA ranks fifth for number of disciplinary referrals involving alcohol and drugs.

According to the 2018 Clery Report, which details crime that occurs on university property and in the surrounding area, there were 494 disciplinary referrals for on-campus liquor law violations handed out in 2017.

Cintron said the WSIP is currently taking input about the project from various members of the UCLA and Westwood community and is constantly looking to include new members and suggestions.

“We never say ‘no’ to anyone, and we’re always looking to expand,” Cintron said. “We want to make whatever we do essential and relevant to UCLA students and to the community at large.”

The WSIP plans to introduce media campaigns to promote alcohol-free lifestyles and offer late-night alcohol-free programs sponsored by UCLA. According to the press release, these programs would be offered during the first weeks of fall quarter and would work to change the view that alcohol consumption is expected during college.

Cintron said these events would offer a casual setting where students do not feel pressured or tempted to consume alcohol.

“Our goal would be to take this project and have every department pitch in to have one united, fun program for students to enjoy without worrying about the social pressures of being in an environment where alcohol is served,” Cintron said.

Cintron said the project covers the entire west side of Los Angeles, and originally focused on Venice and Santa Monica before branching out to Westwood and UCLA in 2018.

She said the project first collaborated with the Arthur Ashe Student Health & Wellness Center last year to evaluate alcohol-related issues in the Westwood area before expanding to include other departments and entities inside and outside of the university.

“We’ve gone on to include the police department, Greek life, student groups, community members, business owners and anyone we could possibly think of,” Cintron said. “UCLA is a huge part of the city of Westwood, so it’s only natural to invite staff and students along with community members to weigh in on the project.”

Cintron said the project has been developing strategies to curtail alcohol-related harms that affect UCLA and the surrounding community.

Rena Orenstein, associate director of UCLA Student Health Education & Promotion, said any aspect of alcohol that adversely affects an individual can fall under the project’s umbrella of alcohol-related harm.

“We want to see people being healthy and productive, so any negative outcomes of alcohol use that don’t contribute to that are going to be identified as factors that we want to see lowered,” Orenstein said.

Orenstein said while the university intends to participate in the project mainly to promote the well-being of students, it is also an opportunity to positively impact Westwood residents outside of UCLA.

The project also plans to work with the university police-sponsored Alcohol Diversion and Education Program, which offers students who are cited for alcohol-related violations the chance to attend an educational program in lieu of receiving a ticket or going to court.

UCPD officer Paul Wells said before the Alcohol Diversion and Education Program was implemented, students cited for alcohol-related violations were required to have their driver’s licenses suspended for a year and a misdemeanor charge placed on their criminal records.

Wells said these consequences often had long-lasting ramifications for students.

“For students trying to apply for medical or law schools, the charge acted as an automatic red flag and was a determining factor that they not be accepted a lot of times,” Wells said.

Orenstein said WSIP members are eager to encourage greater student participation and input in the strategizing process as they move forward and develop their programs.

“We all want to see the level of student involvement grow and for them to set the stage in terms of initiating ideas, programs and discussions about needs on campus,” Orenstein said. “The ideas that have been suggested by students thus far have focused on keeping students safe and bringing to life some of the True Bruin Values, and we’d like to see that continued.”

‘The Art of Survival’ illustrates women’s ability to find their inner strength

This post was updated April 3 at 3:24 p.m.

Archery helps a woman change her fate in Gregory Armstrong’s short film.

The Theater, Film and Television graduate student said his film, “The Art of Survival,” combines Idaho’s cultural phenomenon of doomsday preppers – complete with their honed survival skills – with female empowerment. As the writer and director, Armstrong said he was interested in exploring something both familiar and foreign, as he grew up in Utah and often vacationed in Idaho with his family. Preparation for doomsday was a concept that lent itself to his story of Alice, who is seeking control over her own life. Her desire for agency, Armstrong said, comes into conflict with her husband who was raised in the hypermasculine culture of doomsday prepping, and believes she should not have control.

“Preppers, as they’re called, have become almost semi-mainstream in Idaho, less of a fringe mentality,” Armstrong said. “I was interested in the darker sides of intense masculinity that can be associated with it.”

The film follows Alice as she searches for purpose and security. Armstrong said she buys into the narrative presented by a flirtatious, charismatic doomsday prepper named Jason, who teaches her the skills necessary to survive Armageddon and eventually marries her. However, as Alice ends up pregnant, she realizes her husband is a man with a paranoid mantra of survival – Jason with his penchant for violence is a contradictory force against the safety she yearns for, Armstrong said.

“He begins to make it clear to her that she doesn’t have a say,” Armstrong said. “He becomes more and more paranoid and his intense focus on the idea of safety and protection becomes violent.”

In the film, archery serves to emphasize both survival skills and the visual concept of female empowerment, said Kennedy Love-Green, a film and television graduate student and the film’s first assistant director. Archery is not just a superficial layer to the film – it is the medium through which Alice finds her strength.

“To be able to see the growth of a character was inspiring,” Love-Green said. “When Alice let that arrow go, when the crew heard it hit that wood, it left this sense of awe and respect.”

Such a sense of admiration continued for the five days on set, Love-Green said, especially for the scenes where Alice manages to fight her way free of Jason. The filming of those scenes, in particular, are that much more impactful as the audience follows not just Alice’s escape but also how her pregnancy plays into it, Armstrong said.

This message was bolstered by the involvement of Angela Lam, an alumna and UCLA’s former archery club president. As the consulting archer, Lam trained and advised both Jessica Bell, who portrayed Alice, and Joe Coffey, who played Jason. Lam said the message of finding one’s inner power speaks for itself through Alice’s ability to escape an abusive relationship. However, for Lam, the actress’ ability to actually use a bow and arrow correctly was what spoke to the visual storytelling of female strength.

Eventually, Alice uses her newly acquired survival skills against her abuser. Armstrong said he did not intend for his advanced film project to contain such a heavy message, but women’s inner strength managed to play a role both in front of the camera and behind it. Additionally, having known people who were victims of abusive relationships, Bell said she hopes the film serves as a reminder that people can find strength even in trying times.

“I want people to check themselves and see if they have made the same mistakes Alice did,” Bell said. “I hope people are more conscious about who they are with and why they are with them.”

UCLA graduate student critiques human interaction with nature in innovative exhibit

Ben Lerchin uses 3D printing technology to explore the relationship between humans and nature in their solo exhibition.

The exhibition, entitled “Spatial Erratic,” is part of a series of exhibitions by graduate students in UCLA’s department of Design Media Arts. Lerchin said the title is a play on “glacial erratics,” a geological term used to describe large boulders transported by glaciers to a landscape they don’t fit into. Open Tuesday through Thursday at the Broad Art Center, “Spatial Erratic” relates the human body with ideas connected to the dynamic rocks, Lerchin said. By utilizing 3D printing, the exhibition creates an intersection between environments and the technology Lerchin uses to recreate them.

“This project has really forced me to look at human relationships with the landscape that constantly encourage the need to develop strategies for recognizing it as a fluid relationship,” Lerchin said. “Things that we might have called nature are hardly that anymore, because our reach has broadened so far.”

Lerchin’s exhibition consists of several different elements that utilize technology to merge the human form with their artwork. The first piece of the exhibition is a pair of 3D-printed legs standing atop shards of a broken mirror as an orange construction light flashes in the middle of the structure. A full-length mirror with jagged edges will also accompany the piece. Lerchin said the mirror serves as a literal reflection of the viewer to inspire thoughtful meditation on where an individual stands within an artificial environment.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is a 3D printing apparatus that will construct a full-size boulder throughout the duration of the exhibition. Because the piece is ongoing, the boulder will be at different levels of construction based on how long the exhibition has been open, Lerchin said. Although a monitor will display the completed print, not all dimensions of the form will be seen, showing the limited perspective of the machinery attempting to capture a natural environment.

“‘Spatial Erratic’ is an accumulation of sedimentary flows extruding a plastic landscape,” said Emily Martinez, a former collaborator. “The kinetic sculptures consider the landscape as body and the body as landscape.”

Elements of the human form will be incorporated into the piece to further the concept of a hybrid between humanity and nature. For example, a part of the 3D print may simply appear as a rock, yet upon further inspection turn out to be a stomach, Lerchin said. By doing so, Lerchin figuratively merges the human body and the boulder in order to show the intimate relationship between the two subjects.

Looking at nature from a technological perspective has been a common theme in Lerchin’s past works, “Thousand Yard Stare” and “Aggregate Vision,” Martinez said. In the pieces, Lerchin uses a camera to capture the environment in seemingly unreadable, glitchy ways by constructing the image in slits rather than a cohesive panoramic, she said. By fabricating environments, Martinez said Lerchin’s latest work continues to play with landscapes while combining the human element.

“But (‘Thousand Yard Stare’ and ‘Aggregate Vision’) decenter the human perspective,” Martinez said. “There’s this way of framing, but it’s human-centric. So, (Lerchin) instead designed this contraption that photographs the landscape.”

The gallery will also include an armchair and two modernist bookshelves housing titles like Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire,” Philippe Descola’s “Beyond Nature and Culture” and Doreen Massey’s “Space, Place, and Gender.” Lerchin said the bookshelves imply a future in which technology, like the large 3D printer, may be found in an individual’s home environment.

Using 3D printing technology not only aided in the pragmatics of the exhibition, but also served as commentary itself, Lerchin said. The medium is a reference to technology, and the objects printed – from human body parts to the boulder – represent the role humans have in imposing themselves on an environment. Design media arts professor Erkki Huhtamo said by creating the 3D printer on their own, Lerchin’s tool-building therefore becomes a part of the artistic process.

“The computer programming and the 3D printer that (Lerchin) is building define the outcome of the whole artistic process,” Huhtamo said. “It doesn’t easily fit into this traditional idea about art. It pushes the idea further into some kind of unknown territory.”

Lerchin said they drew inspiration from the various environments they have been situated in, from Washington to the Bay Area to Los Angeles. Each city had a distinct landscape, yet human interaction with it transcended boundaries. The exhibition ultimately critiques the burden created by humans forcing artificial technology on environments, they said.

“When I was an (undergraduate student) working in Walla Walla, Washington, I was dealing with the landscape there and looking at the relationship that we have to it as humans; how it can be a threat, how we affect it, how it affects us,” Lerchin said. “I think there’s a tendency to look at it as a sort of passive force that we need to control, and I think that’s deeply problematic.”

Producers of ‘STAG PARTIES’ aim to show alternate to male-dominated film industry

In the early 1900s, men often attended stag parties at clubs or fraternities where they paid to watch stag films – a subgenre of pornography – in a group setting.

In the fictional series “STAG PARTIES,” four young women decide to film and distribute their own stag films, hoping to reclaim the subgenre and empower themselves.

Writer, producer and director Maya Rose Dittloff, a fourth-year film and television student, said her crew will begin shooting Thursday. Set in 1920s Harlem, the series follows four women who hope to exploit the toxic masculinity of their time. By producing their own stag films, they have control over the content and earn profits. The film industry has almost always been male-dominated, Dittloff said, but she hopes to empower women by portraying main characters who rewrite the rules of filmmaking.

“’STAG PARTIES’ is saying that the power is given to those who hold the camera, that write the script. Those behind the scenes really determine how audiences perceive the subject matter,” Dittloff said. “Giving that power to this group of young women becomes altogether revolutionary because that means that they determine the future for filmmaking.”

In the series, maids Valentina and Aurora are cleaning a fraternity house when the house’s manager forces himself upon Valentina and kisses her. For Valentina, the experience is dually traumatic, Dittloff said that in addition to the violation, Valentina is a queer woman and is not attracted to men. Meanwhile, Aurora is upstairs, observing a group of men watch stag films, during which she develops the idea of her and three friends making their own.

The gender inequality and power dynamics will be accentuated through the cinematography, said co-producer and cinematographer Cole McCarthy, a fourth-year film and television student. When the fraternity manager forces himself on Valentina, the camera shots of his face will be from farther away, separating viewers from his emotions, but shots of Valentina’s face will be close-up so viewers can empathize with her feeling of powerlessness. During filming, the camera will also look up at the manager but look down on Valentina, rendering her somewhat helpless, McCarthy said.

When Valentina is violated by the fraternity manager, she feels she wants to reclaim her power over her body, said Carla Emilian Olivas, the actress who plays Valentina. While stag films were produced for the male gaze, Olivas said having the women make the films is sex-positive and empowering, as the women are making their own choices about their bodies.

The women are making the decisions every step of the way and have their own say, making filming a safe space, Olivas said. When the women are engaging in something intimate, like shooting their own stag films, they know other females have their back and will not ask them to do anything that makes them feel uncomfortable, she said. In the series, the women set their own boundaries, making sure they discuss what they feel comfortable doing on camera.

As men started to take over the film industry, they pushed women to the bottom of the ladder, and in directing stag films, they would just tell women what to do without considering their comfort on camera. Additionally, the women are gaining the profits made from the films by creating and distributing them instead of men, Olivas said.

“I think ‘STAG PARTIES‘ is kind of just rewriting that history and saying, ‘No, we’re going to be our own filmmakers and we’re going to take this industry and make it our own and not have it be dominated by a male,’” Olivas said.

“STAG PARTIES” emphasizes how people who have been belittled can take back their narrative, Dittloff said. As a queer woman of color herself, Dittloff said she developed the idea for the series when considering what she wants to watch when switching on her TV or streaming services: a group of young women trying to navigate the filmmaking world and finding themselves along the way.

“Today what makes good filmmaking, the rules were determined by white men,” she said. “If you’re going back in time and writing those rules as a group of queer women, I want to imagine what that future looks like.”

As the series production process continues, McCarthy said they hope “STAG PARTIES” can be broadcasted on a platform like Amazon Prime, Netflix or Hulu. After the proof of concept is filmed, Dittloff will write the script for the full 40-minute pilot, McCarthy said, later followed by a season one breakdown and where she sees the show heading.

Even though men still dominate the film industry, McCarthy said “STAG PARTIES” will tie in the obstacles women faced in the 1920s with those they face today. Dittloff said the #MeToo movement and Harvey Weinstein scandal have exposed the problems of the skewed gender dynamic in the industry, but with “STAG PARTIES” celebrating women, she hopes to acknowledge and empower the victims through the series.

“Right now in the film industry … how do we actually make change and stop the epidemic of sexual assault that is obviously so prominent in the year 2019?” Dittloff said. “For me the opportunity goes back to the initial conception of filmmaking as a whole, so that meant going back to 1920 and rewriting the rules and the power dynamics of film at the start.”

Students’ lawsuit only serves to perpetuate inequality in college admissions

Scandal, fraud, privilege and wealth. One thing ties all these together: college admissions.

Oh, and also a couple of kids from Stanford with money to spare on a lawsuit.

Two Stanford students filed a class-action lawsuit against UCLA, Stanford, Yale and several other universities involved in a widespread college admissions scandal indictment of nearly 33 wealthy people and celebrities involved in a scheme to pay off collegiate athletics coaches to guarantee their children admission to elite universities across the country.

The students in the lawsuit allege their degrees are now worth less and that the universities involved denied them fair consideration of their admissions applications. This lawsuit demands compensatory damages, including payback of application fees.

Most people would be fairly happy with receiving a degree from Stanford. But privileged college students never cease to amaze.

And that’s the point: The college admissions scandal showed us how wealth and privilege allow people to game the system. These students have the resources to sue universities they didn’t get into – despite going to an elite one themselves – and yet still feel that they are entitled to compensation.

This lawsuit is symptomatic of the massive flaw exposed in the admissions scandal: Wealth and privilege still play a large role in college admissions. Every year, wealthy families flex their status and colleges submit to them – be it by giving legacy admissions or preference to children of donors. The only difference between the scandal and these elite pathways is that in the latter, the ones hurt don’t have the option to file an expensive lawsuit demanding fairer treatment.

This lawsuit is merely a self-indulgent pursuit that seeks only to calm the worries of a couple students who have already succeeded in overcoming institutional barriers. It’s unlikely these Stanford students care for the larger implications of inequity in college admissions, but are instead trying to seek reparations for their hurt egos.

The college admissions scandal opened everyone’s eyes to the cutthroat nature of applying to college. But anyone who has applied to college recently can tell you that it wasn’t surprising that wealthy families managed to pay their way into elite universities.

Crystal Chacon, a second-year environmental science student, said she wasn’t surprised when the scandal broke.

“It’s just not that surprising to me because although UCLA and other colleges talk about being fair and holistically admitting students, a lot of systems in this country, especially in education, can be really unfair,” Chacon said.

This large-scale criminal conspiracy serves as a reminder that backdoor admissions methods are standard at many elite colleges. According to a survey by Inside Higher Ed, 42 percent of private institutions and 6 percent of public institutions consider legacy status as part of the admissions process. That list includes universities like Columbia, Harvard and Stanford.

Many of the students attending these universities also enjoy great access to wealth. The median income of a student from Stanford is $167,500, according to The New York Times, and 66 percent of the student body comes from the wealthiest 20 percent of households.

Instead of addressing these problems, the lawsuit these students filed is centered solely around them and how the scandal affects them. Its purpose clearly isn’t to create meaningful change and it makes a mockery of the real issue here: how fluid money is in the college admissions process.

“I feel that it is kind of silly because they’re from Stanford, so I don’t think anyone is going to think that their degrees are less just because of the scandal, ” said Isabella Rico, a second-year English student.

Students from all backgrounds deserve to have faith in a process that almost always determines their futures. This lawsuit does nothing to ensure equality of opportunity is at the forefront of higher education – something these Stanford students can and should be fighting for. This lawsuit instead demonstrates how detached wealthy and privileged individuals are from the real obstacles many college applicants face, such as standardized testing fees, tutoring costs and limited access to affordable college counselors.

Perhaps this lawsuit will cause universities to re-evaluate how their admissions processes favor certain applicants over others. The threat of litigation and this scandal remaining in the public eye could be the first step in challenging legacy and donor preferences. But it is hard to believe anything about this lawsuit could be positive when it seems to be more about two students trying to profit off this scandal than anything that could lead to real change.

The fundamental problem with college admissions isn’t the wide array of parents who are photoshopping pictures of their kids to get them into college. It is the explicit ways that families can legally exploit college admissions using wealth and privilege to gain unfair advantages, and this lawsuit just perpetuates that.

At the end of the day this lawsuit isn’t about addressing real inequity in college admissions.

Just ask the low-income students who filed a lawsuit because they didn’t get into college.

Without wider student input, Title IX advisory board is just another echo chamber

Twenty-three percent of female and 5.4 % of male college students have experienced violent sexual assault while in college. More than 4 % of all college students have experienced stalking while working on their degree.

Each university that receives federal funding has an office to contend with the harrowing reality of those statistics. From investigating allegations to recommending appropriate punishments for violators, Title IX offices serve an integral role in ensuring sexual discrimination does not interfere with any student’s ability to receive an education.

But it would be naive to assume the mere existence of these offices is sufficient to counter sexual assault and harassment on college campuses – especially at the University of California.

There is a shocking lack of regulation of the UC’s Title IX offices with regard to whether they investigate complaints, leading to a system that varies campus by campus. Additionally, these offices do not have the authority to determine the disciplinary measures doled out to those found to have harassed or assaulted someone, thus making the process inequitable for survivors.

To mitigate complaints that the UC’s systemwide Title IX Office and policies were insulated from student input, the University created the Title IX Student Advisory Board in 2018 to interface with students from each campus.

This board could be valuable for altering some crucial shortcomings of sexual violence and sexual harassment guidelines. But it has had little impact on SVSH because it is not inherently required to be engaged with the student bodies it supposedly serves.

The Title IX Student Advisory Board is itself an exclusive board that is often not in touch with student experiences. Because administrative offices and student government officials select members, the board lends itself to being an ideological bubble.

In other words, the advisory board has been another way for the UC’s Title IX Office to give itself a gold star for listening to students – another distant space created by the Title IX Office where policy is crafted far from students.

The board’s current members were selected by a committee composed of the systemwide Title IX coordinator, the student regent, UC Office of the President student affairs administrators, student representatives from the UC Student Association, the UC Graduate and Professional Student Coalition, and the student body presidents from each campus.

These representatives, by nature of their exposure to campus bureaucracy, are often predisposed to aligning with the Title IX Office’s policy. Be it by supporting the use of flimsy alternative resolutions like restraining orders to avoid committing resources to investigate sexual harassment complaints, or immediately accepting the reason the UC settles with those who violate SVSH policy, these individuals can find other minor ways to reform the policy that don’t get at the core of the issues.

It’s not that incorporating student voices is inherently problematic; rather, this particular board’s setup does not lend itself to actually challenging the office’s policy.

Additionally, the fact that the student body presidents of each university are a part of the committee increases the likelihood that fellow student government colleagues are appointed to the board, rather than independent students who have a passion for reforming Title IX policy and procedures.

But the University’s SVSH policy has serious flaws that continue to brew a toxic culture of silence among sexual harassment and sexual assault victims.

An advisory board that does not include members who have felt the struggle and inherent flaws of campus Title IX offices is not an advisory board that can actually reform the policy governing treatment of survivors. It’s easy to rubber-stamp the process and say there’s student representation, but it is quite different to listen to those who are victims of the process and don’t see just outcomes – which is far too often a reality.

Despite the fact that the advisory board and the systemwide Title IX Office are in regular communication, their collaboration does not lead to substantive reform since board members can be ideologically homogeneous with those in the office.

Additionally, these board members are responsible for educating and reaching out to students at their respective campuses to receive input. In theory, the student advisory board and Title IX Office would adequately incorporate student input into their reforms of the SVSH.

But without input from regular students, there is no sufficient check to ensure advisory board members are getting to the core of the issues in the Title IX policy.

Sexual assault and harassment are an unfortunate reality of many students’ college experiences. The way for Title IX administrators to combat that is to look outside their office, not inside it.