According to The Huffington Post, lawmakers are growing increasingly concerned about the fact that students found responsible for sexual assault can transfer schools without notifying their new institution of their record.
The increased focus follows revelations that Jesse Matthew Jr., the suspect in the death of University of Virginia student Hannah Graham, was accused of sexual assault at two Virginia colleges he attended, without the information leaving those campuses. After being named a suspect in Graham's disappearance, Matthew was indicted in the case of a 2005 rape in Fairfax, Virginia, and forensic evidence recovered in his case has led to a "significant break" in the unsolved 2009 death of a Virginia Tech student, the Associated Press reported.
Currently, institutions have no legal obligation to notify another institution if they find a student responsible for sexual assault, though there's nothing preventing them from it, either.
In response, U.S. Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) announced plans to introduce legislation aimed at filling the information gap. The measure, still being drafted, would clarify that schools are allowed to share information about sexual misconduct punishments, despite current federal privacy law. The idea is not necessarily to prevent a college from admitting a student who was punished at another school, but to at least share information so that the next college can make a fully informed decision, reported The Huffington Post.
"For the most part, this issue has been swept under the rug historically -- out of sight, out of mind, get it off of our campus and it's someone else's problem," Speier said in an interview. "Because it's a closed system and they have their own code of ethics, it allowed [colleges] to ignore the fact that [sexual assault is] a crime in civil society."
Related Links
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/10/sexual-assault-transferring_n_6297176.html?1418244158
The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/19/hannah-graham-homicide_n_6185906.html