Institutional responses to allegations of sexual assault are guided by a number of state and federal laws, including the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Jeanne Clery Act (Clery), the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA), the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act of 2013 (Campus SaVE Act), Dear Colleague letters, and due process protections under the 14th Amendment. In addition, campuses create sexual misconduct policies to guide their response, which is typically closely tied to its conduct policies. Incorporating and responding to all these complicated and interwoven sources of guidance requires universities, and university personnel, to interpret these provisions and make individual determinations on how to enact the policies with an eye towards decreasing sex-based discrimination in educational institutions. This study analyzes how universities interpret these federal guidelines into their campus sexual misconduct policies through an in-depth analysis of published website information and institutional policies. It also includes interviews with sexual assault policy administrators and response teams on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to further understand policies and procedures that are not captured in policies or websites. This study concludes that there is very little standardization across campuses beyond a general greater availability of resources for complainants over respondents on websites, and close relationships between Title IX, conduct processes, and jurisdiction. Each campus differs in its key words to implement their policies and how they implement Title IX through the conduct process. These findings suggest there is more work to be done to improve the intersectionality of sexual assault policies.
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