University’s are facing major criticism for instances where they are alleged to have not followed The Office for Students recommendations on how to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct.
The independent cited a number of recent heinous examples of sexual assault and harassment on university campuses in which university’s appear to neglect their duty of care, despite numerous calls from regulators and critics for university’s not to neglect grievous cases reported to them.
To give statistical support to the testimonials of students and demonstrate the depth of the problem, a survey conducted by the campaign Revolt Sexual Assault found that out of 4,500 students from 153 different institutions, 62% had experienced sexual violence at UK university’s.
The consultation also found that only 1 in 10 of these students reported their experience to the university and police, reflecting the level of distrust in institutions to effectively tackle the crime. This reflects findings obtained by The Courier in Feburary that showed only 22 students had reported incidents of sexual misconduct to the university over a period of four years, from 2017 to 2021. Furthermore, less than 5 people where permanently excluded from the University as a result of these reports. Anecdotally, based on stories and experiences of most students at university, it is easy to see how this figure is a gross misrepresentation of the depth of the problem on student campuses.
Last April the Office for Students set out a list of recommendations aimed at helping university’s to prevent and respond to sexual harassment and misconduct on campus and asked university’s to review their current policy’s. These included removing barriers to reporting incidents and strengthening processes for reporting incidents, and ensuring that the governing bodies had “adequate and effective” approaches to tackling investigations. This was in light of over 80 British University’s, including Newcastle, being named on the Everyones Invited website, where students anonymously report incidents of sexual harassment abuse, assault and misogyny.
In March, the Secretary of Education Nadhim Zahawi and Michelle Donelan, the minister for university’s, both high profile conservative Politian’s, wrote to the regulator (ofs) requesting that implementation of these recommendations should be a condition of registration for university’s. This would ensure the regulator would have powers to penalise university’s which fall short of policy guidelines and fail victims of sexual harassment and assault. The sanctionable offences involve a range of penalties with repeated breaches potentially resulting in the loss of university status.