Courtesy of Principal Deputy Director Bea Hanson of the Office on Violence Against Women
Yesterday morning, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released a groundbreaking report: the Campus Climate Survey Validation Study (CCSVS) Final Technical Report, a key deliverable of the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault (Task Force). Established by President Obama on Jan. 22, 2014, to develop a coordinated federal response to campus rape and sexual assault, the Task Force recommended in its first report that schools conduct climate surveys to gauge the prevalence of sexual assault on campus, assess students’ perceptions of the climate at their school on the issue and obtain valuable information to develop solutions. The Task Force also released a toolkit and sample survey, which the BJS study – funded by the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) – revised and pilot tested at nine diverse colleges and universities, including public, private and community colleges