A panel of campus officials and community leaders discussed campus resources and support for sexual assault survivors at a Take Back the Night town hall on Feb. 19. They discussed possible language changes to Title IX policies, a federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination and losing funding for sexual assault resources due to promises by the Trump administration to cut down on “wasteful” government spending.
Associated Students Take Back the Night — a student run and funded organization that aims to end sexual violence in the UCSB and I.V. area — joined forces with recently consolidated subcommittee Students Against Sexual Assault (SASA) — a group dedicated to eliminating specifically sexual assault and harassment — to organize the town hall, which occurs quarterly at the Loma Pelona Center.
President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Jan. 20, which aims to remove any diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs sponsored by the federal government and eliminate transgender identity, removal of any DEI programs related to the federal government, as well as roll back protections for LGBTQ+ people.
These sweeping actions have generated fear amongst organizations that get funding from the government, that they could be subject to language changes related to DEI or gender identity, or lose funding altogether. Off-campus organizations like Standing Together to End Sexual Assault (STESA), a private non-profit organization that provides support to sexual violence survivors, are potentially at risk.
Panelists included representatives from Campus Advocacy Resource & Education Center (C.A.R.E.), the UCSB Title IX office, Counseling and Psychological Services, Dean of Students Joaquin Becerra and STESA. SASA’s co-chairs facilitated the panel alongside Executive Director of Associated Students Marisela Márquez. C.A.R.E.
Associate Director of Survivor Services and panelist Julia Pennick said C.A.R.E. offers services for emotional support, academic accommodations, housing relocation and financial assistance. They also highlighted C.A.R.E.’s “healing” programs, such as art-therapy, sound-healing and yoga.
“We work with folks who have been impacted in these forms of violence of sexual assault, dating, domestic violence and stalking, and who want to know what next steps they can take,” Pennick said.
Panelist Ariana Alvarez, the Title IX compliance and discrimination and harassment prevention office director said her office handles sexual assault reports, provides information sessions to students and offers accommodations such as academic, student employment and housing assistance.
According to Alvarez, Title IX is responsible for “overseeing compliance efforts to prevent and respond to discrimination and harassment for faculty, students and staff.”
After introductions, the SASA co-chairs provided a round of guiding questions for the panelists to discuss several topics such as sexual assault awareness, support for students and administrators, prevention and response on campus, safety planning and the reporting process.
Panelists emphasized the importance of confidentiality and the role of mandated reporters. They also encouraged students to reach out to any of the student resources for questions or reports, saying they would be referred to the office most fitting to their situation.
“Whether you’re an on-campus organization or an off-campus organization, at the end of the day, we’re trying to do the same thing: eliminating the biological response when you go through something like this, to freeze,” STESA crisis intervention program manager James Kyriaco said.
The meeting then moved on to a Q&A answering specific questions asked by students anonymously through an online forum. Questions mainly regarded specific details when reporting special cases of sexual assault.
Panelists addressed possible adjustments due to the changing political landscape under the Trump Administration, stating that no changes have been made yet and that the university remains committed to addressing discrimination.
“We are not in anticipation of making any changes as of now to any of our services, our mission, or our values, because as of now nothing is legally supported, so we are not making any changes. And we do believe that members of California as a system and our state of California will resist some changes that are coming forward as executive orders,” Pennick said.
However, there may be slight changes in the language of Title IX, Alvarez cautioned.
“The [University of California] remains committed to staying the course of addressing discrimination. For us, I do think what we could see in terms of changes are just slight variations in the definitions of groups or of COVID conduct,” Alvarez said.
Nevertheless, Alvarez assured that the Title IX office is still complying with training requirements and moving forward with policy as it is today.
Kyriaco said that STESA relies heavily upon Victim of Crime Act funding. This federal law helps crime victims with financial assistance and services, and provides annual grants to providers who offer services to victims. He was unsure of how actions in Washington would affect the organization.
“We’re looking very carefully at what is happening in Washington in terms of how Victim of Crime Act funding will be appropriated because organizations like ours and other types of agencies that do this kind of work rely on it,” Kyriaco said.
As a new subcommittee, SASA Co-Chairs third-year sociology and Spanish double major Evelyn Stacy and third-year history of public policy and law and sociology double major Kayla Goodin aim to create a venue for students to communicate with administrators and plan to expand the topics of the town halls to address the current needs of students.
“Our job as an organization is to uplift student voices and make them heard, or allow them to be heard, so this is another venue to do that and provide a space to connect administrators who can be daunting and scary and bureaucratic,” Kacy said.
“Whatever issues are topical at the time is what we can focus on, because we have the ability to change questions, change panelists, change the whole structure,” Kacy continued.
