It has been a little less than a month since the Whitewater Student Government (WSG) unanimously passed the Student Life Advancement Act of 2022, which aimed to make Whitewater more of a community for students through activities and resources on campus. Now in their last meeting Monday, March 28, WSG aimed at making students more comfortable with sexual assault prevention. 

The Sexual Assault and Prevention Act of 2022 starts by stating statistics from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). It lists that “women ages 18-24 who are college students are 3 times more likely than women in general to experience sexual violence. 21 percent of TGQN (transgender, genderqueer, nonconforming) college students have been sexually assaulted, and 1 out of every 10 rape victims are male.”

To combat this, WSG has proposed through this bill to create a Sexual Misconduct Summit starting in either April or May of 2022. The summit is planned to be made of several representatives from campus. These include two appointed student representatives, administrative representatives such as the Title IX officer, staff representatives, faculty members who will also be appointed by the WSG and community members.

Within the bill, several items of business are stated for the Sexual Misconduct Summit to attend. These are as follows:

1. Review of Campus Resource Survey 
2. Presentation by Title IX officer on local, state, and federal trends and updates to Title IX 
3. Discussion on trends and needs of UW-Whitewater and the City of Whitewater in regards to Sexual Misconduct. 
4. Develop objectives and appropriate deadlines associated (policy/practice revision, communication method, federal and system compliance)
5. Centralized assessment expectation of efforts in 2022-2023
6. Tentative calendar of unit efforts

After a few clerical items were taken care of, the Senate floor opened for discussion surrounding the proposed bill. 

President Davin Stravroplos was the only one to speak on the matter.

“I encourage you all to do the right thing and emphatically vote for this bill tonight,” said Stravroplos. “Sexual assault is an evil that we are totally committed to ending in our time. And this bill, frankly, is about responsibility. It is on us to make our home safe.” 

The bill ended up passing unanimously. The next steps are for the members of the summit to be appointed and for their first meeting to be completed by May 29.

For more information about RAINN statistics visit https://www.rainn.org/about-sexual-assault. To view the Annual Reports on Sexual Assualt and Sexual Harassment from the UW System visit https://www.rainn.org/about-sexual-assault.