ATLANTA (AP) – Advocates for victims on Tuesday asked Georgia lawmakers to reject a bill overhauling colleges’ disciplinary processes in reports of sexual assault, warning that it could discourage victims from coming forward.
The Senate Judiciary subcommittee didn’t take a vote after more than an hour of testimony, largely from victim advocates and women who identified themselves as victims of sexual assault asking senators to vote it down.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Earl Ehrhart, said changes are necessary to protect the rights of accused students. Ehrhart argued that law enforcement is best suited to handle the cases instead of campus officials. He called campus disciplinary decisions a “scarlet letter” that can affect students’ ability to get into another school or find work.
“That’s a terrible thing to do to an individual,” he said. “And that’s happening on Georgia campuses.”
Ehrhart, a Republican from Powder Springs, is a frequent critic of some Georgia schools’ disciplinary proceedings, arguing that the rights of students accused of sexual assault have been violated. He also filed a federal lawsuit last year challenging a “Dear Colleague Letter” issued by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in 2011 that laid out specific requirements for dealing with sexual violence under Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.