Advocates Were Successful in Stopping House Bill 51!

House Bill 51 (Rep. Ehrhart, 36^th) would have made broad changes to the process for dealing with campus sexual assault on all campuses in our state, including limiting options for victims. Learn more by listening to a Georgia Women’s Policy Institute Fellow being interviewed on WABE: http://news.wabe.org/post/closer-look-3-d-printing-campus-carry-and-more), or read more in this WABE and CNN article. 

• After passing the House of Representatives, the bill was tabled by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Please thank members of the Senate Judiciary committee for their hard work in ensuring that this bill was properly vetted.
• After it was tabled in committee, the bill sponsor attached House Bill 51 to another unrelated bill. Thankfully the State Senate stopped that bill from passing on the last day of the state legislative session. Please thank the Lt. Governor for ensuring that this harmful campus sexual assault bill did not pass the legislature in 2017.

House Bill 51 would have caused harmful consequences for the victims of campus sexual assault:

Campus disciplinary proceedings addressing sexual assault complaints are necessary.

When a sexual assault complaint is made, universities need to be able to investigate, hold hearings and take prompt action to address activities on campus, such as making sure that the parties are not in the same classes or dorms. These proceedings are unrelated to, and serve a different purpose than, the criminal justice system. House Bill 51 aimed to limit the action that colleges could take and to prevent schools from being able to fulfill their duty of care to protect the entire campus.

It is universal best practice for adult victims of sexual assault to control when their assault is reported to law enforcement.

When a sexual assault complaint is made on campus, trained staff work with the victim to explain all options for pursuing counseling and health care, disciplinary proceedings and/or reporting to law enforcement. If victims who have just experienced a traumatic experience know that they will be in control over what happens next, they are more likely to come forward to tell someone about the assault. House Bill 51 would have required mandatory reporting to law enforcement for all felonies, including sexual assault, that occur on campus, regardless of the victims' consent. This would  have caused a chilling effect on victims seeking help of any kind.

Uniformity and transparency around how campuses address sexual assault would best promote due process protection.Advocates support the goal of guaranteeing due process for those who are accused of sexual assault on campus. Responding to concern from legislators, the Board of Regents recently revised the rules that all USG campuses must follow when dealing with sexual assault complaints, to ensure fairness for the accused while maintaining compliance with all federal laws. Those rules went into effect for the fall semester and campus staff across the state were recently trained to implement them. It would be the best use of our state government’s resources to allow these new statewide policies to be implemented fully and then assess if additional changes should be made, with the input of experts, students, parents and advocates. House Bill 51 actually would have provided for less uniformity, transparency and due process protection, by contradicting current statewide rules that outline the process for handling sexual assault complaints with unclear and confusing language, and by allowing individual schools to interpret its broad provisions.