Citation

Engel SM. Wis. J. Law Gend. Soc. 2018; 32(2): 133-177.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, University of Wisconsin Law School)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Sexual assault in the military and in higher education has come under increasing scrutiny in the past few years. The military has the ability to criminally prosecute servicemembers who commit sexual assault and has therefore defined the problem of sexual assault as a criminal act that is best addressed through the military's criminal justice system. Colleges and universities cannot criminally prosecute students who commit sexual assault but Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, requires schools to address sexual assault administratively. This is because, in addition to being a crime, sexual assault is also a form of sex discrimination and the criminal justice system is not designed to address the discriminatory harms caused by it. At colleges and universities, the responsibilities for addressing sexual assault are bifurcated with the police and prosecutors addressing the criminal aspects and the schools addressing the discriminatory aspects. The military, by focusing narrowly on the criminal aspects of sexual assault, is failing to adequately address the discriminatory harms caused by sexual assault that the criminal justice system is not designed to address. Therefore, the military should use Title IX and the processes by which colleges and universities address the discriminatory aspects of sexual assault as a model to restructure its response to sexual assault in order to fully address sexual assault as both a crime and an act of sex discrimination.

Language: en