Dr. Jennifer Hammat, candidate for the new position of assistant vice president for campus sexual assault and Title IX coordinator, revealed in her presentation on Tuesday afternoon explained that she had more than professional experience in this field, by voicing that she is also a survivor of sexual assault.

He was the president of a fraternity, and her mother worked as the director of housing. Afraid of the possible ramifications for her mother’s job, she stayed silent about the incident for months. It was 20 years before she spoke his name.

Hammat’s presentation was titled, “Getting it Right: Overcoming Obstacles and Forging a Campus-wide Response to Sexual Assault.”

Hammat currently works as Associate Vice President for compliance services and Title IX officer. She has been at this position for nine years.

One student asked Hammat how she would handle the balance between protecting a survivor who doesn’t want to report and trying to ward off a potential serial offender. Hammat referred to her own experience.

Her first concern when it comes to a survivor reporting, she said, is that they are aware of their options to name or not name their attacker, to seek help or not.

“It’s not for me to decide if that person is ready to move forward,” Hammat said.

Hammat said throughout her presentation that she wants survivors to come in and feel like they have some control back.

Audience members filled out feedback forms on Hammat’s candidacy and she met several of the faculty and staff before leaving.

Laura Hanson, a University of Oregon graduate and former member of Gamma Phi Beta sorority, has come forward in a Eugene Weekly article that ran on May 28 to tell the story of the university’s handling of her sexual assault that happened over two years ago.

According to the article, Hanson was assaulted in 2013 at a fraternity house on campus. Following the assault, Hanson says that she faced discrimination from her sorority and had her case mishandled by the UO administration after an email she wrote to the sorority was passed along to Title IX coordinator Penny Daugherty. In August 2014, Hanson filed a lawsuit against the university under Title IX (which protects against gender-based discrimination) for what she alleges — and the university acknowledges — was a delay in the handling of her case. The settlement totaled $30,000.

The UO administration has been under national scrutiny for its handling of sexual assaults following allegations against three players on the UO men’s basketball team that surfaced last May.

Hanson told the EW that she was assaulted by a member of Chi Psi fraternity at a watch party for the Fiesta Bowl in January 2013. She says that when she told her Gamma Phi sisters about that night, she found little support. She began to skip sorority functions where her assailant might be present and says she was charged $1,000 from the chapter for her absence.

Hanson says she fought an uphill battle to get help almost everywhere she tried. Her counselor at the counseling center left after her first appointment, and she was never set up to meet with another. Hanson says Daugherty told her not to report to the police because it was a “he-said, she-said” situation, and that Hanson’s sorority fees were reimbursed when they never were. Inside her sorority, Hanson says, she was shamed as “a liar and a slut.”

The Emerald reached out to Gamma Phi for a statement, but was told the chapter would not be commenting for the time being.

After the school year ended, Hanson’s case dragged on over the summer of 2013. UO spokesperson Julie Brown said in the EW article that the student code of conduct at the time allowed cases to be suspended over the summer, a provision that has since been changed. Hanson ended up coming back for a fifth year of school after missing so many classes during the first few months after the alleged assault. She said she emailed Daugherty in September 2013 and again in November 2013, but received no response.

Hanson told the EW that she only saw results after she wrote about her experience in a midterm essay for a conflict resolution class taught by Cheyney Ryan. After speaking with Hanson, Ryan went above Daugherty to report Hanson’s story to Vice President for Finance and Administration Jamie Moffitt.

In January of 2014, Hanson heard from then-assistant Dean of Students Chicora Martin that her alleged assailant had been found “responsible for sexual misconduct as defined in the Student Conduct Code.”

The student was required to have no contact with Hanson, was put on probation until graduation and was also assigned to keep a “Sexual Misconduct Journal: a five-part educational activity that encourages education and reflection on topics around this violation,” the EW reported.

Additionally, the article says that the university obtained copies of Hanson’s counseling records in a manner similar to those of Jane Doe, the legal pseudonym of the survivor involved in the men’s basketball lawsuit. Hanson’s attorney, Jennifer Middleton, who is also Jane Doe’s lawyer, says that Hanson signed a Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act waiver so that Middleton could access her records, but did not release them to the university administration.

Middleton told the EW that the university used what she described as “detailed and not entirely clear exceptions to FERPA” to access Hanson’s records. Debate about increasing confidentiality of student records is continuing in the Oregon State legislature.

Brown submitted the following statement to The Emerald in response to the EW article:

“The university is sorry for the experience of a former student related to a delayed conduct case and is taking measures to improve how we support students who report sexual assault. We do not agree with some assertions made in the Eugene Weekly article; however, we acknowledge there was a delay in the student-conduct process related to this incident. The issue that allowed for that delay has since been addressed and corrected – and the practice of suspending investigations during the summer has ended. The university continues to make sexual assault prevention and response a priority because there needs to be a stronger and more coordinated approach to ensure our students receive the services they need if an assault does occur.”

The accused student and Chi Psi did not immediately respond to Emerald requests for comment.

Follow Kaylee Tornay on Twitter @ka_tornay

Live coverage of Wednesday night’s ASUO senate meeting

Access the agenda here.

Last week, the 2014-2015 ASUO Senate passed its last motion. When the May 20 meeting was adjourned, senators hugged, took pictures together and called to each other to keep in touch. Later, the Emerald sat down with a few of the outgoing senators to ask them about their experiences this year as members of the legislative body.

Miles Sisk wore several hats during his third year of involvement in the ASUO. He held Senate Seat 6, was EMU Board chair and this year’s Senate vice president. Sisk is a junior majoring in political science. He ran an unsuccessful bid for ASUO president, so next year will be his first at the university not holding a position.

Do you think you’ll be involved in the ASUO at all next year?

Sisk: I applied for the EMU Board, through the EMU Board’s internal hiring process. The EMU Board is this weird committee where it’s kind of connected to the ASUO, but it’s also independent from the ASUO. I might try to work on a couple projects that I wanted to work on through other means that have to do with the ASUO, but that’s about it. You might see me at a Senate meeting or two.

Senate Seat 1 was vacated by Yelin Oh, a junior political science major. She was chair of the Programs Finance Committee (PFC), which oversees the budgets of over 200 student groups. This was her first year on Senate. Oh said that she felt somewhat intimidated by the process before she joined.

How do you think you got past the intimidation you felt going in?

Oh: I probably will never get 100 percent over it, like even to this day, I still get shocked by things that happen. But I think even with the people I really disagree with…they’re not disagreeing with me to harm other people or just to disagree with me. They have the same end goal. Everyone wants to do what’s best for the student body, they just have different ways of doing it.

Dylan Haupt was elected last year to Senate Seat 18, Mathematics, Physics and Architecture. Haupt’s seat is a two-year seat that he is vacating due to changing his math major to a minor. He is also majoring in economics and readily admits to being one of the quietest senators this year.

What do you think was the greatest thing Senate taught you?

Haupt: Maybe it’s not the most significant thing that I learned, but just getting this feeling, sitting in a room full of people that really want to be there, like all the senators that are there and doing this for a purpose. You get a sense that these people are going to do something later on in their life, something big, maybe not involving politics, but they’re all determined people, hardworking obviously. They’re gonna do something good.

The other departing senators are:

Rebecca Rhodes, Seat 10: Departments Finance Committee

Sammy Cohen, Seat 13: Literature, Family and Educational Studies

Katelyn Klosno, Seat 3: PFC

Quang Truong, Seat 4: EMU Board

Andrew Lubash, Seat 7: Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee

Ronnie Grenier-Hemphill, Seat 8: ACFC

Will Iversen, Seat 11: Business and Economics

Connor Lasken, Seat 14: Pre-Business and Allied Arts

Hao Tan, Seat 16: Life Sciences

Lizeth Marin, Seat 17: Law and Social Sciences

Aven-itza De Primavera, Seat 19: History and Journalism

Senators Abel Cerros, Quinn Haaga and Robin Lilley will keep their seats for next year. Senator Francisco Morales-O’Connor will serve as the ASUO external vice president.

Time is winding down until the Board of Trustees votes on new student health insurance options to be offered at the University of Oregon.

On May 8, Robin Holmes met with the Board to lay out all the policies, which include three different options of varying coverage. Rather than the current system, which requires students to pay $161 per term and a $15 fee for every visit to the Health Center, the new options allow students to choose their level of coverage, which could result in a higher or lower payment per term.

One stipulation about the policies is that each student must choose an option that will result in what is called “platinum” coverage, or that which satisfies the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

The Board will vote on the policies at its next meeting on June 4-5.

Follow Kaylee Tornay on Twitter @ka_tornay

ASUO President Beatriz Gutierrez decided if she had a chance to show legislators she was serious about the concerns of students, she would take it.

Gutierrez was one of 10 students arrested in Salem on May 14 during a protest against the “kicker.” A kicker is an excess amount of tax rebate money that the legislature has the power to allocate. This year, it is estimated to be about $349 million. If the kicker “kicks,” then that money will be returned to taxpayers in the form of a tax reduction in the coming year.

The Oregon Student Association has a different goal for kicker funds. One of OSA’s main concerns with regard to the legislative budget is funding for higher education and easing the growing burden of Oregon’s student debt. The OSA’s goal is to get enough money from the state to freeze tuition, $755 million for universities and $560 million for community colleges. OSA wants the kicker to contribute to that funding.

“Students are getting priced out, and that needs to stop,” Gutierrez said. “And to do that we need to stop raising tuition.”

The OSA frequently organizes lobbying events in Salem. On May 14, students decided to rally the Education Subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means’ budget hearing for universities.

The Ways and Means Committee, made up of members of the Oregon House and Senate, determines the budget every two years and delegates specific portions of the budgeting process to the various subcommittees. OSA wanted to be present for this subcommittee’s discussion of the budget for Oregon universities.

In fact, they were determined not to be ignored. Students tried to engage lawmakers through various tactics, including lobbying and a sort of baseball-card exchange that encourages conversation about their issue.

“It’s sort of a tradition,” ASUO Chief of Staff Lamar Wise said. “We give legislators each others’ cards and they have to find their own.”

About 20 students then entered the hearing room and began a protest inside. Authorities escorted them out. The students then decided to lie down in the hallway outside the hearing, continuing to chant and holding signs that said, “Don’t kicker us while we’re down. Fund higher education.”

Gutierrez said she was one of 10 students who blocked a doorway where she lay. Those students were told to move or they would be arrested. They refused. State troopers then began arresting the students in the doorway.

They were taken to Marion County Jail and held in a holding room for several hours. Gutierrez said the arrests were made around 10:30 a.m., and students were not processed until 6 p.m. The OSA paid bail using its own funds. No student fees from any school went toward bail.

Four other University of Oregon students were also taken into custody: Yanely Rivas, Alfonso Macias, Anna Hoffer and Ednaly Jimenez.

The kicker debate will continue through June 30, when the rebate will become finalized. In the meantime, Gutierrez and the OSA plan on continuing efforts to lobby legislators to route funds toward higher education.

“My friends have been priced out of college. I think it’s also my responsibility as the president to take action on what students need,” Gutierrez said. “There’s just so many reasons that I feel that urgency.”

With the zipping up of backpacks and the closing of laptops, it was over: the final meeting of the 2014-2015 ASUO Senate.

Senators were far from stagnant during their last minutes as a governing body. Wednesday’s meeting saw a sizable amount of money being moved, funds that will have no small impact on the student body over the next year.

The biggest chunk of money was the allocation from over-realized funds, which totaled $264,760. The over-realized committee brought a recommendation to Senate, which it formed by reviewing all submissions through a hearing process. Representatives from several of the groups were present at the meeting to contend for more funding for their requests.

Senator Hao Tan was the first to propose an amendment to the committee’s recommendation, by suggesting diverting funds from a request for bike shelters to add money to the trans conference and rowing team requests. Senate tossed around several ideas for how best to fund what, a discussion that escalated into shouting at several points. Senators-elect, although still unable to vote at this point, weighed in on the debate. Tan’s amendment passed, and shortly after, Senate passed the amended recommendation:

$40,000 for solar panels to be installed in the new EMU building

$3,560 for Conflict Resolution Week

$30,000 for the UO Rowing Club to get new rowing machines

$131,200 to be put towards a trans conference scheduled for next May

$10,000 for Women in Graduate Studies, to be put towards various programs

$10,000 to MEChA for a Diego Rivera art exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

$40,000 for free STD/HIV testing at the University Health Center

The senate meeting also featured 23 student groups returning funds to surplus.  For about 10 minutes, Sisk read all the return requests in what would be his longest and last motion he’s ever made during his three-year stint in senate.

The amount left in surplus for next year’s Senate ended up being $108,831.40.

Officers gave short speeches as they gave their updates, thanking their colleagues for a year of service. Senate president Rebecca Rhodes is graduating at the end of the term, but will preside over the last two meetings, which will be run by the senators elected this year.

“I did this job interview, and they asked me, ‘If you had to hire people for your own business, who would you hire?’ Rhodes said. “I really thought about senate because I know that there are a lot of hard working incredible people who are going off to do super awesome, amazing, things.”

Senators took pictures and hugged each other goodbye after the meeting was over.

Senate meetings are at 7 p.m. on Wednesdays in the EMU Walnut Room. To learn more about the ASUO, visit its website.

Live coverage of Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting.

Access the agenda here.

“I just want people to know what Nakba means,” Hadil Abuhmaid said, a Palestinian flag draped over her shoulders.

Abuhmaid was one of several students who gathered at Collier lawn Friday afternoon to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the Palestinian displacement following Israeli independence in 1948. Palestinians remember the date as “Nakba,” which means, “catastrophe.”

Approximately 700,000 Palestinian people were expelled from their homes and villages when the state of Israel was declared. Abuhmaid’s grandparents were among them. Refugees spread across the region, from Jordan to West Bank to Lebanon and beyond.

According to Abuhmaid, there were Saudi, Indian and Pakistani students among the supporters.

Abuhmaid, a graduate student in nonprofit management, organized the event with the help of several students, including those from the Arab Student Union. Organizers held flags and signs, and offered rich black coffee and dates to anyone who stopped by.

Abuhmaid said this is a part of a three-day mourning tradition to commemorate a death. Students also wrote letters to Palestinian refugees and created the hashtag #ducksforPalestine to raise awareness.

“We want students to know what Palestinian people are really going through,” Abuhmaid said.

The Mills International Center will also be hosting a discussion about Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Tuesday, May 19 at 5 p.m.

ASUO president Beatriz Gutierrez was arrested along with several other students from the Oregon Student Association at a protest in Salem on the morning of May 14.

Students were lying in a hallway in the capitol protesting the Oregon kicker rebate, which is an excess amount of tax rebate money available to the state legislature.

And the arrests are underway. #orleg pic.twitter.com/tiCuEe1bG0

— Chris Lehman (@CapitolCurrents) May 14, 2015

“Don’t kicker us while we’re down. Fund higher education,” the signs read.

This year, the kicker is projected to return $349 million to taxpayers, which results in a 5.1 percent reduction in tax liability on average. A kicker hasn’t occurred since 2007.

Kickers used to be returned to taxpayers in the form of check refunds, but in 2011 they changed to a tax reduction. In 2012, the legislature changed again so the corporate tax portion would be routed towards K-12 education.