November, 07 2017, 10:30am EDT
End Rape On Campus Launches Campus Accountability Map
WASHINGTON
Today, End Rape On Campus launches the Campus Accountability Map, an interactive map and database of campus sexual assault policies and practices. This map empowers current and prospective students, parents, alumni, and community members to be better informed about how schools are measuring up nationally and empowered to hold schools accountable.
The Campus Accountability Map allows users to view in-depth information on each institution's sexual assault investigation policies, prevention efforts, and survivor support resources as well as high-level statistics on prevention, adjudication processes and survivor support in standardized, easy-to-read summaries. The Campus Accountability Map also allows easy comparison between schools.
Today's launch includes the two largest four-year undergraduate colleges and universities in each state and the District of Columbia as well as the fifteen most prominent Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the nation, for a total of 117 institutions with their collective undergraduate enrollment exceeding 2 million students. End Rape On Campus will continue to expand the number of schools included and regularly update existing data. The public can add to this map through a crowd-sourcing tool, available through EROC's website.
Said End Rape on Campus Managing Director Jess Davidson, "In the coming months, prospective students will apply to colleges and make one of the most important decisions of their lives: which college to attend. Though safety on campus is often a key concern of prospective students and their families, it has been difficult to access and compare sexual assault response practices and policies at multiple schools--until now. Such information should be instrumental in the college decision process, and the Campus Accountability Map will add a powerful tool to the arsenal of prospective students and their families. The Campus Accountability Map will also help current students who are calling on their schools to uphold best practices. End Rape on Campus is committed to helping students and their families obtain the institutional transparency and accountability they deserve."
For further information, please contact info@endrapeoncampus.org.
End Rape On Campus (EROC) provides confidential services. This message is intended only for the named recipient. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. This email and all other communication from EROC employees are not substitutes for legal or mental health advice, as EROC employees are not lawyers or mental health professionals.
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Supreme Court Urged to 'Rule Quickly' After Trump Immunity Arguments
"It'd be a travesty for justices to delay matters further," said one legal expert.
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After about three hours of oral arguments Thursday on former President Donald Trump's immunity claims, legal experts and democracy defenders urged the U.S. Supreme Court to rule swiftly, with just over six months until the November election.
Trump—the presumptive Republican candidate to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden, despite his 88 felony charges in four ongoing criminal cases—is arguing that presidential immunity should protect him from federal charges for trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, which culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Justices across the ideological spectrum didn't seem inclined to support Trump's broad immunity claims—which critics have said "reflect a misreading of constitutional text and history as well as this court's precedent." However, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) shared examples of what it would mean if they did.
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After warning that a president could also order the occupation or closure of the Capitol or high court to prevent actions against him, CREW concluded that "the Supreme Court never should have taken this appeal up in the first place. They should rule quickly and shut these ludicrous claims down for good."
The organization was far from alone in demanding a quick decision from the nation's highest court.
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On Thursday, the arguments "got away from the central question: Is a former president immune from criminal prosecution if he tried to overthrow a presidential election, using private means and the power of his office to do so?" the Brennan Center noted. "The answer is simple: No."
"It is not an 'official act' to try to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power or the Constitution, even if you conspire with other government officials to do it or use the Oval Office phone," the center said. "Trump's attorney was pushing the court to come up with a sea change in the law. That's unnecessary and a delay tactic that will hurt the pursuit of justice in this case."
In a departure from previous claims, Trump's attorney, D. John Sauer, "appeared to agree with Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the prosecution, that there are some allegations in the indictment that do not involve 'official acts' of the president," NBC Newsreported, noting questions from liberal Justice Elena Kagan and conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee.
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Due to Trump attorney's concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there's now a very clear path for DOJ's case to go forward.\n\nIt'd be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further.\n\nJustice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.\u2b07\ufe0f— (@)
According to NBC:
Matthew Seligman, a lawyer and a fellow at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School who filed a brief backing prosecutors, said Sauer's concessions highlight that Trump is "not immune for the vast majority of the conduct alleged in the indictment."
Ultimately, he said, the case will go to trial "absent some external intervention—like Trump ordering [the Justice Department] to drop the charges" after having won the election.
At the same time, Sauer's backtracking might have little consequence from an electoral perspective. Further delay in a trial, which Sauer is close to achieving, is a form of victory in itself.
Slate's Mark Joseph Stern pointed out that when Barrett similarly questioned Michael Dreeben, the U.S. Department of Justice lawyer arguing the case for Smith, it seemed like they "were trying to work out some compromise wherein the trial court could distinguish between official and unofficial acts, then instruct the jury not to impose criminal liability on the former."
"It was fascinating to watch Barrett nodding along as Dreeben pitched a compromise that would largely preserve Smith's January 6 prosecution but limit what the jury could hear, or at least consider," Stern added. "That, though, would take months to suss out in the trial court. More delays!"
Stern and other experts signaled that the decision likely comes down to Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, with the three liberals seemingly supporting the prosecution of Trump and the other four conservatives suggesting it is unconstitutional.
People for the American Way president Svante Myrick said in a statement that "today's argument brought both good and bad news. It was chilling to hear Donald Trump's lawyer say that staging a military coup could be considered part of a president's official duties."
"Thankfully, the majority of the court, including conservative justices, did not seem to buy that very broad Trump argument that a former president is absolutely immune from prosecution under any circumstances," Myrick added. "On the other hand, it's not clear that there is a majority on this court that will quickly reject the immunity arguments and let the case go forward in time for a trial before the election. That's a huge concern."
Trump was not at the Supreme Court on Thursday; he was at his trial in New York, where he faces 34 counts for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle. The are two other cases: a federal one for mishandling classified material and another in Georgia for interfering with the last presidential contest.
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