Bipartisan bill announced to help curb sexual assaults on campus

The University of Missouri and other universities around the country could soon be facing stricter regulations on how campus sexual assaults are handled.

Wednesday, Missouri senator Claire McCaskill along with six other senators introduced the campus accountability and safety act.

It’s a bipartisan bill that includes recommendations from a white house task force appointed earlier this year.

Those who attend college are more likely to be sexually assaulted than those who don’t.

That was one of many statements made Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill as a bipartisan group of senators announced the new bill.

The campus accountability and safety act is legislation to curb sexual assaults on the nation’s college and university campuses.

McCaskill is one of the driving forces behind the bill.

“I want young women to know you don’t have to be a person with perfect judgement to become a victim in this crime. I want men and women on campus to understand everyone has a responsibility. No one can be a bystander. You can’t assume this is no big deal,” said McCaskill.

There are five main points in the bill.

The first, establishing new campus resources and support services.

Minimum training standards will be set for all on campus personnel dealing with sexual assault cases.

Plus for the first time ever, students at all campuses across the country will be surveyed about their experience with sexual violence to get an accurate picture of the problem.

The results will be published online so high school students and parents can better compare universities.

University of Missouri system president Tim Wolfe says, ” We welcome the focus of Senator McCaskill on the problem of campus sexual assault, and will continue to work with her in addressing this challenging, societal issue. Together with the work of our sexual assault/ mental health services task force,the executive order I signed and new amended language to our collected rules thatstrengthen our Title IXpolicies, we intend to establish the University of Missouri as the national model in terms of providing effective and compassionate sexual assault and mental health services to our students.”