WASHINGTON — To Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is another example of a “predator” who is protected in a powerful industry.

The New York Democrat recently donated $11,800 of Weinstein’s political contributions to the anti-sexual violence organization RAINN as numerous women have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

Gillibrand, who has focused on ways to address sexual assault on college campuses and in the military, told USA TODAY it’s important to not only hold predators accountable but the institutions protecting them, whether it’s Hollywood, the NFL, the military or colleges. She and other Democrats have been critical of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ recent decision to scrap Obama-era rules for addressing sexual misconduct on campuses.

In an interview, Gillibrand discussed her concerns about DeVos, the fallout from Weinstein, and her legislation to hold institutions accountable for sexual violence:

Q: Education Secretary DeVos says she wants the department’s rules for sexual misconduct on campuses to strike a more appropriate balance between the rights of the accused and accusers. What are your concerns with the change in direction?

A: They vitiated the Title IX guidance that was put in place by President Obama that was working well and that schools had not only adopted but were using. So what she's done is she put the process into disarray. Schools will be unsure about what they're supposed to be doing and there's a problem with her (interim) guidance in that it creates an opportunity for appellate rights by someone accused but not the same appellate rights by someone who is a survivor of sexual violence. She's just tipped the scale on behalf of defendants over plaintiffs, which is something she said she wouldn't do.

Q: The Obama administration threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that weren’t tough on sexual misconduct, under the gender-equity Title IX law. But in the last 10 years, no school has lost funding as a result of any civil rights violation. Can the issue of campus sexual misconduct be addressed if schools don’t lose funding?

A: I never liked the idea of taking away your ability to provide financial aid to students in need. The way we wrote our reform bill, called CASA, was to allow a fine to be issued by the Department of Education based on their discretion, which I think if it wasn't taking away your money for at-need at-risk students, that it would be more likely used.

Q: Your Campus Accountability and Safety Act, in addition to penalizing non-compliant universities financially, would require sexual violence surveys for the first time with results published online. How would that help?

A: Let’s say the survey said they had 10 sexual assaults last year but none had (been) reported to them, that means they have a problem with the reporting structure and they can then go and fix it. Just having that data is really important. We modeled that survey after what we already do with the Department of Defense, which provides at least the opportunity to have an apples-to-apples comparison year after year about what's getting better, what's not getting better.

Q: Why was it important to give away Harvey Weinstein’s donations, and do you have a #MeToo story?

A: I think Harvey Weinstein is just another example of a predator in a powerful industry that was protected by that industry. So whether you're talking about Hollywood, or whether you're talking about the NFL, or you're talking about the military, or you're talking about college campuses, each of those institutions are biased and they protect predators because predators tend to be powerful and important. We need that kind of accountability to hold not only predators accountable but the institutions that are protecting them. I don't have any personal #MeToo stories, but I'm very grateful for all of those women and men who are coming out to tell theirs.

Q: Is there a systemic issue that you believe should be addressed, in terms of sexual assault in the military and on campuses, and what should this Congress do now?

A: There is a systemic problem in the military because every year you have tens of thousands of rapes, unwanted sexual contact and sexual harassment. We haven't seen the numbers budge pretty much at all in the last 15 years and very few survivors are feeling comfortable coming forward. So we're really struggling here to understand why the military fights so hard against common sense reform, when all we want to do is professionalize their military justice system. And, specifically, when a case takes place, that that survivor can go to someone other than her chain of command and that the decision would be made not by her commander but by a trained military prosecutor who has no skin in the game, who doesn't necessarily know the assailant or the survivor, and can make the decision based on the evidence alone.

Q: You have told other women, “run on the issue you want to fix.” Do you ever think you can more effectively address these issues by running for higher office?

A: I think you can address all of these issues wherever you are. So whether you're just an advocate telling your story online, or whether you're a reporter reporting on it, whether you're a U.S. senator, I think it all works. And I think that all of us, it's incumbent upon us to do whatever we can where we are.

Right now, I'm very focused on 2018 because I want to keep serving in the Senate and I really want to represent New Yorkers.

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