The UT chapter of the Texas College Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Julie Oliver, the Democratic candidate running for TX-25, held a town hall Wednesday to discuss sexual assault on college campuses.
Texas College Coalition Against Sexual Assault is a student organization at UT that works to reform the way Texas college campuses address sexual assault, according to its website. Divya Nagireddy, an executive director of the organization, said she wanted to ask Oliver about policy proposals on sexual assault on college campuses.
“I just (wanted) to ask her more about (what her stance is) as a graduate of the (UT School of Law) and now a politician, and how she wants to see what’s (going to) happen in the future when it comes to policy regarding sexual assault,” public health freshman Nagireddy said.
The event opened with a conversation about sexual assault policy on campus when Oliver was a student at the UT School of Law.
“I honestly don’t even recall a sexual assault policy when I was at UT,” Oliver said. “So I guess (there has) 100% (been) improvement, (but) it’s still not there.”
Oliver said she was open to hearing student and community ideas regarding sexual assault policy and opened the floor for attendees to discuss it.
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One student at the event talked about an initiative that the UT Senate of College Councils has put forth regarding the Tracy Rule, which would prevent student-athletes who have committed acts of sexual misconduct from participating in events and receiving sports scholarships.
“I think this is really a very, very, very healthy resolution,” Oliver said. “When people aren’t held accountable, things don’t change.”
Oliver said sexual assault was a personal issue to her because someone she is close to was sexually assaulted near UT’s campus.
“Police officers didn’t take it seriously, even though the survivor was at the hospital getting tested,” Oliver said, “I do think as part of our criminal justice reform, there needs to be some major transformation within police departments on how they treat survivors in that moment.”
Public health freshman Joanne Navales said she attended the event in the hopes of learning more about different approaches to addressing sexual harassment and assault.
“A takeaway that I have is hearing about how the justice system must be changed to provide more sensitivity and protection for survivors,” Navales said.