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The omnibus budget bill that the Senate passed last night may make low-cost birth control available from campus health centers after a four-year absence.
The bill incorporated the Affordable Birth Control Act, which overturns provisions of a 2005 law that, in the words of Choice USA,
stopped pharmaceutical companies from providing prescriptions at lower than market costs to health clinics and College and University health centers. Previously, companies were supplying schools and safety-net providers with low cost or no cost birth control. As a result of the [Deficit Reduction Act], low income women and college students were forced to pay market price, approximately $40-$50 per month.
The Affordable Birth Control Act was the subject of intense organizing by campus groups, making its passage a victory for students and for student activism.
Quoting Choice USA again, “This is an example of the power we as young people have to make real change that directly impacts our lives. Congratulations everyone!”
Last April we passed on word that a student at the University of Portland had been threatened by administrators with disciplinary action after reporting a sexual assault. She and a male student had been drinking at a party in violation of university policy. She told the university he raped her in her dorm room. The university took no action.
A year later, after the student went to the campus newspaper with her story, she got a letter from the university’s judicial co-ordinator saying that the two students’ drinking had made “consent—or lack of consent … difficult to determine,” and that “there are possible violations for which [the complainant] could be charged.”
Today comes word that the university’s sexual assault reporting policies have been revised. The new policy reads as follows:
“To foster the safety and security of the entire community, the University of Portland encourages reporting of all instances of sexual assault. … To remove barriers to reporting, the University will not pursue potential policy violations of the survivor which occurred in the context of the sexual assault. Likewise, the University will not pursue potential policy violations of a person who comes forward to report sexual assault.”
This change brings Portland’s policies in line with Catholic colleges like Gonzaga, Santa Clara and Notre Dame. According to a university administrator, it brings the university’s written policies in line with “the University’s values and practices regarding sexual assault that have been in place for many years.”
Thanks to Inside Higher Ed for the heads-up. New visitors are welcome to follow us on Twitter.
The University of Michigan has completed its investigation of a professor who paid a student for sex and allegedly assaulted her.
As we reported at the time, a Michigan law student told police last December that Yaron Eliav, an associate professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, had struck her with his hand and a belt in the course of a sexual encounter they had arranged through Craigslist.
Police refused to arrest Eliav, who claimed the acts were consensual, for assault, instead charging both student and professor with misdemeanor offenses relating to the exchange of money for sex. Both were ultimately fined and charged court costs.
A university spokesperson told the Ann Arbor News last week that Eliav is currently on paid leave, and that an internal investigation of his role in the incident has been completed. She refused to comment on the outcome of the investigation, or to say what administrative actions, if any, had been taken against Eliav, who has tenure.
About a week ago, this story made the rounds.
A professor at the University of Michigan answered an ad on craigslist for sexual services placed by a woman who turned out to be a U of M law student. In the course of the encounter that followed, he hit her with a belt and slapped her face. She went to the cops, he claimed it was all consensual. The cops refused to charge him with assault, instead charging them both with misdemeanor offenses relating to the transaction itself, and one local (non-campus) cop made an extremely offensive public comment ridiculing the woman who had been beaten for going to the police.
I didn’t post about the story at the time because I didn’t have much of an angle on it, and because it’s often hard to know what to make of a crime story when it first breaks. It wasn’t clear what action the university was taking, or planning to take, for instance.
But now the law student has spoken out, and her statement is very much worth reading. Here it is.
The regents of Iowa’s three public universities have approved new policies for the investigation of campus sexual misconduct in the wake of a bungled response to a sexual assault complaint at the University of Iowa last fall.
In September of this year, an independent investigation found that administrators had mishandled an incident in which a student claimed that two football players raped her in a dorm room. According to the report, the university failed to provide complete and coherent information to the student throughout the complaint and investigation process and acted ineffectually in responding to her reports of harassment on campus after she filed the complaint.
In the past six months two UI faculty members have committed suicide while under investigation for sexual misconduct. In August, a political science professor shot himself while facing criminal prosecution for soliciting sexual favors from four students in exchange for grades, and in November a music professor asphyxiated himself after a former student sued him for sexual harassment.
studentactivism.net 
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