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sexual violence
Governor Mills Stood up for Students and Survivors—Who Will Join Her?
Rather than descend into reactionary advocacy that centers an untrustworthy, increasingly fascist government, we must go above and beyond Title IX, standing up for actionable, lasting solutions to sex-based discrimination in schools.
Mar 27, 2025
“Are you going to comply with that?”
The question came at a bipartisan governors’ meeting, lobbed unceremoniously by U.S. President Donald Trump toward Gov. Janet Mills of Maine. Gov. Mills is one of the few representatives of any political party or institution to defy a recent executive order barring transgender students from women’s sports—and to stand firmly and vocally against the weaponization of Title IX to advance a bigoted, anti-trans agenda.
“I’m complying with the state and federal laws,” she replied. And then—“See you in court.”
Even as we identify and invest in alternate approaches to protecting students from gender-based discrimination, we cannot grant right-wing politicians leeway to weaponize Title IX for their own political gain.
The exchange, though brief, and the rushed and retaliatory federal investigation that followed, echoed far beyond the White House as a rare but critical example of how state, local, and school officials must stand up for students in the absence of adequate federal protections against sex discrimination. And those federal protections have never been adequate.
It is high time to recognize that in practice—and without states and schools moving beyond compliance to true advocacy for their students—Title IX has never offered comprehensive, accessible solutions to gender-based violence. I should know: I’ve experienced Title IX’s failings as a student, an organizer, and a policy advocate working to change how schools treat—and advocate for—survivors.
I was a college student in the Obama years, during what should have been a progressive “golden age” for Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting gender-based discrimination in publicly funded schools. The reality on the ground was marked less by progress than by confusion and chaos. When my peers sought support from our Title IX office, administrators called their reasonable requests for support “too difficult” to address. Without on-campus advocates, nearly 40% of survivors who reported abuse during this period experienced a substantial disruption in their education due to retaliation, institutional betrayal, and being pushed out of schools. Many survivors stayed silent.
When Betsy DeVos gutted Title IX protections during the first Trump administration, I joined the survivor- and youth-led project Know Your IX, where I worked with student activists whose horror stories under the Trump administration’s Title IX rule sounded eerily familiar. Survivors experiencing traumatic investigations dropped out of school—paying off student loans for a degree they would never get. Medical school students chose not to report abuse for fear of losing professional opportunities. Young people who had experienced dating abuse developed new mental health challenges, and their schools refused to grant accommodations. And though Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, Trump-era guidance on how schools should enforce Title IX persisted throughout nearly the entirety of his presidency. President Trump moved to officially reinstate DeVos-era guidance, after appointing people who have caused sexual harm or been complicit in it (including Secretary of Education Linda McMahon) to the highest positions of power in our country. If it wasn’t already clear, it should be staggeringly so now: We cannot rely on the federal government to save us.
Rather than descend into reactionary advocacy that centers an untrustworthy, increasingly fascist government, we must go above and beyond Title IX, standing up for actionable, lasting solutions to sex-based discrimination in schools. Local organizing at K-12 schools and college campuses led by students and survivors offers one path forward. We can also fight for stronger state anti-discrimination policies that reflect the needs of marginalized students. And we can empower student groups with resources and training to support their peers in the absence of federal or administrative protections.
Most importantly, it is time for schools to take responsibility for protecting their students and act accordingly—regardless of state and federal policy, or how the president decides to interpret the 37 words that make up the statute of Title IX. While federally funded schools are required to comply with Trump’s Title IX rule, they can and should create separate anti-discrimination policies that fill in the gaps of the current Title IX rule. We should encourage schools to go above and beyond what federal law requires to protect students from sexual violence, and respond with care when it occurs.
Of course, in the absence of strong, federal legislation codifying students’ protections and schools’ responsibility to address gender-based discrimination, “sending education back to the states” creates an inequitable patchwork of civil rights protections, resulting in even more students experiencing traumatic disruptions to their education. While investing in school- and state-level organizing, we must build wide networks of support and mutual aid that persist no matter how hostile the environment. Groups like Know Your IX, now a project of the national youth activism organization Advocates for Youth, will continue to organize alongside brilliant and dedicated survivors and student activists holding their schools accountable and fighting for survivor-centered solutions.
Even as we identify and invest in alternate approaches to protecting students from gender-based discrimination, we cannot grant right-wing politicians leeway to weaponize Title IX for their own political gain. We must join Gov. Mills and shout from the rooftops that bigoted, transphobic attempts to attack marginalized young people through education policy will never be a solution to this country’s epidemic of sexual harassment and assault. We must hold strong in the face of increasingly brazen attempts from federal officials to curb students’ rights and retaliate against dissidence. If lawmakers actually cared about women and girls, they would bolster Title IX protections—not attempt to dismantle them.
Title IX was always the floor, not the ceiling. Now, it’s time to aim for the stars. Student survivors, LGBTQI+ youth, and pregnant and parenting people deserve nothing less.
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UN Commission Accuses Israel of Measures 'Intended to Prevent Births' and Other 'Genocidal Acts' in Gaza
"Nothing to see here, just a 49-page U.N. report documenting Israel's 'genocidal acts' in Gaza and its systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war," wrote one historian.
Mar 13, 2025
A report released Wednesday by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel says that Israel has "systematically" used reproductive, sexual, and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians since October 7, 2023.
Additionally, Israel committed "genocidal acts" when systematically destroying reproductive and healthcare facilities in Gaza, according to the report's authors.
The report was submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which as of February Israel no longer engages with.
"Sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities have been systematically destroyed across Gaza" and Israeli authorities have simultaneously prevented "humanitarian assistance at scale, including necessary medications and equipment to ensure safe pregnancies, deliveries, and neonatal care," according to the report.
"Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention," the report states.
The report also says that harms for pregnant people and new mothers in Gaza is of an "unprecedented scale." The lack of access to sexual and reproductive care has caused harm and suffering with "irreversible long-term effects" on the "physical reproductive and fertility prospects of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group."
"The underlying acts amount to crimes against humanity and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention," according to the report.
The commission also "documented a pattern of sexual violence, including cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture, and other inhumane acts that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity."
Additionally, Palestinian mens and boys have been subjected to "often sexual" acts committed to "punish, humiliate, and intimidate" them into subjugation, per the report.
"Nothing to see here, just a 49-page U.N. report documenting Israel's 'genocidal acts' in Gaza and its systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war," wrote Zachary Foster, a historian who focuses on Palestine, on X on Thursday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the report in a statement.
"Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organization... the United Nations once again chooses to attack the state of Israel with false accusations," he said, according to Reuters.
In October 2023, Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing over 1,000 people and taking roughly 250 hostages—prompting Israel to carry out a fierce military campaign in the Gaza Strip that killed tens of thousands of people, according to local health officials.
Multiple human rights groups have said Israel is guilt of committing genocide or "acts of genocide."
Israel faces an ongoing genocide case, led by South Africa, at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri in November 2024. Hamas has since confirmed his death.
A shaky cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel went into effect in mid-January. The New York Times reported Thursday that Israel-Hamas negotiations to extend the cease-fire are in limbo.
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3 Reasons the Senate Should Reject Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense
I will protest the nomination of Fox News commentator and Trump’s buddy Pete Hegseth to lead the DOD over sexual assault allegations, his views on women in the military, and his history of financial mismanagement.
Jan 14, 2025
On January 14 at 9:30 am, the Fox News commentator and Army National Guard Major Pete Hegseth is scheduled to be questioned by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in a confirmation hearing on President-elect Donald Trump's nomination for him to be Secretary of Defense.
I, along with many other women and men military veterans, will be at the hearing to strongly protest Hegseth's nomination and demand that the committee refuse to send the nomination forward for a vote of the entire Senate.
I am an unlikely protester. I served 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves. I retired as a colonel. I was also a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and was on the team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December 2001. I resigned from the U.S. government in March 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq.
Sexual Assault Allegations
I will protest lackluster Army National Guard Major Pete Hegseth's nomination on several points, but my primary concern is his physical and psychological violence toward women.
I am 78 years old. I joined the Army in 1967 when less than 1% of U.S. military forces were women. Now, 17.5% of U.S. military forces are women.
Sexual assault in the military is rampant, and Hegseth has a history of sexual violence toward women. He secretly paid a financial settlement to a woman who had accused him of raping her in 2017.
Even Hegseth's mother, Penelope Hegseth, in 2018, during Hegseth's divorce proceedings from his second wife, strongly criticized his treatment of women. In an email obtained by The New York Times, Hegseth's mother wrote:
As a woman and your mother I feel I must speak out... You are an abuser of women—that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth. [...] It's time for a someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women. [...] On behalf of all the women (and I know it's many) you have abused in some way, I say... get some help and take an honest look at yourself.
The Associated Press reported that "Tim Palatore, Hegseth's attorney, has revealed that the woman who made the allegations was paid an undisclosed sum in 2023 as part of a confidential settlement to head off the threat of what he described as a baseless lawsuit."
A 22-page police report was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman alleged to have transpired—one that is at odds with Hegseth's version of events. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event, and Hegseth.
Considering the horrific history of sexual assault in the military, Hegseth's payoff to someone who has accused him of sexual assault must disqualify Hegseth from confirmation as Secretary of Defense.
With sexual assault in the military a continuing problem for women…and for men, there is no way that a person who has been involved in even allegations of sexual assault should be Secretary of Defense… or president, for that matter, but that's another issue for evangelical Christians, Catholics, and other religious conservatives who voted for Trump to explain to their daughters.
The number of sexual assaults in the U.S. military is likely two to four times higher than government estimates, according to a study from Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute. "During and beyond the 20 years of the post-9/11 wars, independent data suggest that actual sexual assault prevalence is two to four times higher than DOD estimations—75,569 cases in 2021 and 73,695 cases in 2023," the authors wrote in the report, which was released August 14, 2024.
The Costs of War Project report comes a year after a Pentagon report found that reports of sexual assault at the country's three military academies increased by over 18% between 2021 and 2022, setting a new record.
A 2016 Department of Veterans Affairs study of over 20,000 post-9/11 veterans and service members found that 41.5% of women and 4% of men experienced some form of sexual trauma while serving. One in three women and 1 in 50 men have reported military sexual trauma during VA healthcare screenings.
And finally, if the previous concern about on sexual assault allegations isn't enough to torpedo Hegseth's nomination, his statements on women's role in the military should sink his nomination.
Hegseth's Negative View of the Role of Women in the Military
In a podcast, Hegseth said the military "should not have women in combat roles" and that "men in those positions are more capable." In another podcast he said that female soldiers "shouldn't be in my infantry battalion."
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a former Army National Guard member and a Purple Heart recipient, said Hegseth was "dangerous, plain and simple." Duckworth was one of the first women in the Army to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She lost both of her legs and partial use of her right arm in 2004 after a rocket-propelled grenade struck her helicopter. "Where do you think I lost my legs? In a bar fight? I'm pretty sure I was in combat when that happened," she told CNN. "It just shows how out of touch he is with the nature of modern warfare if he thinks that we can keep women behind some sort of imaginary line, which is not the way warfare is today."
Additionally, Sen. Duckworth added: "It's frankly an insult and really troubling that Mr. Trump would nominate someone who has admitted that he's paid off a victim who has claimed rape allegations against him... This is not the kind of person you want to lead the Department of Defense."
If sexual assault issues and his negative view of women's role in the military do not convince the Senate's Armed Services Committee that Hegseth's nomination should not go forward, then the mismanagement of funds of tiny organizations compared to the massive Department of Defense budget should take him out of consideration for the extraordinary position of Secretary of Defense.
Mismanagement of Tiny Organizations Compared to the Massive Department of Defense
In the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct while in the organizations, Hegseth was forced to resign from the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran, Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America.
According to CBS, "Hegseth received a six-figure severance payment and signed a non-disclosure agreement when he exited the organization Concerned Veterans of America" in 2016. "The payment came amid allegations of financial mismanagement, repeated incidents of intoxication and sexual impropriety, as well as dissension among its leaders over Hegseth's foreign policy views," CBS reported.
Prior to joining Concerned Veterans for America, Hegseth faced allegations of financial mismanagement from Vets for Freedom (VFF), where he worked from 2007 to 2010.
"Donors were concerned their money was being wasted and arranged for VFF to be merged with another organization, Military Families United, which took over most of its management," CBS reported further. "Revenue at VFF dwindled to $268,000 by 2010 and by 2011, the organization's revenue was listed as $22,000. Hegseth joined Concerned Veterans for America the following year."
Margaret Hoover, host of the PBS program "Firing Line" and a former adviser to Vets for Freedom, said in an interview on CNN that Hegseth had managed the organization "very poorly." Hoover expressed doubt about his ability to run the sprawling Defense Department when he had struggled with a staff of less than 10 people, and a budget of under $10 million.
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