Funding Safe Campuses

States must ensure that schools and victim service providers have the funding and staff capacity to support survivors and effectively prevent and address campus gender-based violence. In order to meet this need, states should establish a campus grant programs and increase appropriations to victim service providers and state enforcement agencies.

This resource is part of our State Policy Playbook. The Playbook outlines key reforms that students, advocates, and state policymakers can pursue to support survivors on campus, keep students safe, and end gender-based violence in school.

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The state Department of Education (or equivalent state agency) should be authorized to make grants to educational institutions for use by such institutions or by consortia consisting of personnel, student organizations, administrators, security personnel, and regional service providers affiliated with the institution. Priority should be given to institutions and consortia that demonstrate need and lack of services, with the goal of helping these institutions and consortia build self-sustaining programs.

Grants should be used to develop and strengthen effective investigation strategies to combat sexual and gender-based harassment; victim services, which may include partnerships with local community-based victim services agencies; state bar associations that provide pro bono legal support for parties involved in campus hearings; and prevention education and awareness programs.

Best Practices

Institutions, consortia, and victim service providers should be able to use grant funds for the following purposes:

To provide personnel, training, technical assistance, data collection, and other equipment with respect to the increased school-based investigation and adjudication of persons committing gender-based violence, which includes domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking;
To develop, strengthen, and implement school policies, procedures, and services that more effectively identify and respond to gender-based violence and to train campus administrators, campus security personnel, and personnel serving on campus disciplinary or judicial boards on such policies, protocols, and services;
To develop, implement, and operate gender-based violence prevention programming;
To develop, expand, or strengthen victim services programs, including programs providing legal, medical, and/or psychological counseling for victims of gender-based violence, and to improve victim assistance on- and off-campus. To the extent practicable, institutions should establish a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with any victim service providers in the community in which the institution is located. If appropriate victim services programs are not available in the community or are not accessible to students, the institution should, to the extent practicable, provide a victim services program on campus or create a victim services program in collaboration with a community-based organization;
To disseminate, or otherwise provide information about victims’ options on- and off-campus to bring disciplinary or other legal actions, including assistance to victims in immigration matters;
To provide culturally appropriate and linguistically accessible print and/or electronic materials for the purposes of gender-based violence prevention and response;
To develop or adapt population specific strategies and projects for victims of gender-based violence from underserved populations on campus.

Resources

The Office on Violence Against Women within the Department of Justice administers a Grants to Reduce Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking on Campus program at the federal level.

Funding Safe Campuses

New Section

Best Practices

Resources

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