Charles H.F. Davis III quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education on student-led calls to reimagine campus accountability regarding sexual assault

The Chronicle of Higher Education article notes that students on campuses around the country are turning to platforms like GroupMe, TikTok, and YikYak to organize protests in response to administrations' treatment of cases of misconduct. Students, the article says, are frustrated with the slow pace of change in the way administrations handle incidents of sexual assault. Citing a recent protest on the Auburn University campus, author Kate Hidalgo Bellows reports that social media platforms provide students a way to organize and be heard when they feel their colleges aren't doing enough to take action against violations to the code of conduct.

Charles H.F. Davis III, assistant professor in the School of Education's Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, said students are speaking out not just about the handling of particular incidents, but are asking for an overhaul to the entire system of accountability.

“We have those [fraternity] chapters who have been routinely and repeatedly found in violation of student codes of conduct related to not just campus sexual violence, but rape culture more broadly, remaining on campus,” he said. “We know that those have deep ties with alumni, with socioeconomics at the university itself. And so I think people are asking for … a revamping of this entire system of accountability as we know it that isn’t vulnerable to being undermined by these other pieces of the college-university industrial complex.”