American colleges are not known for taking rape very seriously: activists at Brown University are currently protesting the measly one-semester suspension of a man who sexually assaulted and choked another student; 23 students currently allege that Columbia University violated federal law by discouraging victims of sexual assault from reporting and allowing rapists to stay on campus; the University of Chicago is facing a federal investigation over its handling of sexual assault; and Tufts University revoked its agreement with the US Department of Education to remedy a poor track record of dealing with sexual assault on campus in violation of Title IX. And that's just this week.



But thanks to the work of grassroots and student-led organizations, a new initiative from the White House to curb sexual assault on campus is using explicitly feminist ideas to frame their recommendations. Color this feminist pleasantly surprised, if not entirely satisfied.

The comprehensive report from the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault was just released alongside a new website for students and schools, NotAlone.gov, to guide schools on how to best prevent and handle sexual assault cases.

At an event introducing the initiative on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden said, "Many of our schools aren't safe. We know the numbers. One in five [women] before they finish school will be assaulted in her college years. Colleges and universities can no longer turn a blind eye."

The report includes a toolkit for "campus climate" surveys so that schools better understand their students' needs, information on bystander intervention with a focus on men's participation, recommendations for misconduct policies and a call for university accountability.

The White House also released a PSA starring Vice President Joe Biden (and a number of notable Hollywood actors).

All of this comes on the heels of a widely-criticized memo to the White House from Rainn, the nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization, recommending that colleges move away from programs that focus on men; emphasize criminal justice solutions; and stop talking about rape culture.

During Tuesday afternoon's event, Wagatwe Wanjuki, an organizer with Know Your IX, tweeted that she was thankful that the White House "basically ignored all of RAINN's recommendations re: campus sexual violence".

Instead, the White House seemed to take its cues from smaller organizations, like Wanjuki's. "One of the big pushes we made was for more transparency," she told me. "We're really excited that the White House listened to what we had to say."

Tracey Vitchers, communications coordinator at Safer (Students Active for Ending Rape), said she was glad to see the White House "centralize the issue of preventing sexual assault before it happens" instead of focusing on how schools can simply avoid violating Title IX and the Clery Act.

While accountability is important, Vitchers said, "we need to have a conversation about how to incentivize schools to prevent sexual assault so they don't focus on compliance over prevention."



There was another, quieter, feminist win in the report as well: a "Checklist for Campus Sexual Misconduct Policies" defines consent as a "voluntary agreement" and makes clear that "silence or absence of resistance does not imply consent". This clarification comes close to the "enthusiastic consent" model that feminist activists (myself included) have been pushing for years – in other words, the notion that true sexual consent is the presence of a "yes", not the absence of a "no".

Biden reiterated as much:

It doesn't matter what she was wearing, whether she drank too much, whether it was in the back of a car, in her room, in the street – it does not matter. It doesn't matter if she initially said yes then changed her mind and said no. No means no. [Sex] requires a verbal consent – everything else is rape or assault.

Still, there's more ground to cover. Vitchers notes the White House recommendations don't put enough of an emphasis on the LGBT community and male survivors of violence, and Wanjuki called for the creation of "intermediate sanctions" for schools found guilty of Title IX violations.

As it stands now, the government can only take one of two extreme measures when a school is non-compliant: revoke their federal funding – which hurts students – or let the school off completely. That's probably why Tufts has reneged on its agreement with the government on how it plans to deal with sexual assault on campus – administrators know it's unlikely that they'll have their funding pulled as a result of their non-compliance.



The White House report also doesn't provide guidelines for how schools should discipline campus rapists. According to a 2010 investigative report from the Center of Public Integrity, American colleges almost never expel those found guilty of sexual assault in campus judiciary proceedings. "The fact that schools will expel someone for cheating on a test, but not for violating another human being and their dignity shows they don't have their values in order," says Wanjuki.

Instead, colleges often opt for "punishments" like asking a rapist to write a letter of apology to his or her victim or forcing the assailant to write a research paper about rape. And while these abusers remain on campus – likely to rape again – their victims are often harassed, stonewalled by administrators and/or end up leaving campus for fear of running into their attacker.

So we still have work to do. In the meantime, I'm thrilled to see the White House make serious progress on this issue – these recommendations come just three months after the formation of the task force, and activists say this is only just a first report – and that they're listening to those working on the ground most closely with students.

Biden ended Tuesday's event with a message: "We're here for you, it's not your fault, and you're not alone."