Scott Walker Wants Colleges to Stop Reporting Sexual Assaults [UPDATE 2]

By Natasha Vargas-Cooper | February 27, 2015 | 3:10pm

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[Editor’s Note: After Jezebel ran this item yesterday, a spokesman for the University of Wisconsin came forward—over two weeks after the budget was released—to clarify: the University requested that Gov. Walker delete the requirements because efforts were redundant with their compliance of the Clery Act. Scott Walker’s camp assures that he’s committed to protecting victims. We reported this piece without full context, and while this piece conveys factual information, omission of that context for that information presents an unfair and misleading picture. We regret the error and apologize.]

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s proposed budget—which would cut $300 million dollars out of the state’s beloved public university system—has a non-fiscal bombshell tucked in between its insane pages.

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Under Walker’s budget, universities would no longer have to report the number of sexual assaults that take place on a campus to the Department of Justice. Under Walker’s plan, university employees who witness a sexual assault would no longer have to report it.

There are no policy recommendations in Walker’s budget how or what would replace these reporting mechanisms. The Governor simply instructs that they should be deleted.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the bewildering force that is Scott Walker, know this: he is a small-time guy who is having a big-time moment by playing the conservative werewolf, a role Chris Christie and Jeb Bush are so far unwilling to play in their presidential bids.

As the election cycle drags on you will be able to tick off the boxes on Scott Walker’s CONSERVATIVE STRONG MAN card. Count this as the first of many boxes.

Below is the text from the budget proposal to ‘delete’ the requirements.

25. DELETE LANGUAGE RELATED TO SEXUAL ASSAULT INFORMATION AND REPORTING

Delete the requirement that the Board direct each institution and college
campus to incorporate oral and written or electronic information on sexual assault in its
orientation program for newly entering students and to supply all students enrolled in the
institution or college campus with the same information in either printed or electronic form.

Delete the requirement that the Board of Regents submit an annual report to the Legislature
regarding the methods used to comply with the above requirement.

Delete the requirement that any person employed at an institution who witnesses a sexual
assault on campus or receives a report from a student enrolled in the institution that the student
has been sexually assaulted report the assault to the dean of students.
Delete the requirement that each institution report annually to the Department of Justice
(DOJ) statistics on sexual assaults and on sexual assaults committed by acquaintances of the
victims that occurred on the campus of that institution in the previous years, and that DOJ
include those statistics in appropriate crime reports.

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