On Monday morning, Brandeis Students Against Sexual Violence released and distributed their second “progress report” on the University’s current policies and practices to prevent and address sexual assault on campus. The report grades the University in a range of areas, suggesting that the University has barely improved on addressing sexual assault since last year and, in some areas, has dramatically worsened. The report calls for an administrative response by next Monday at 9 a.m.

B.SASV is a student coalition that advocates for improved University policies to both educate students on sexual assault prevention and to address the needs and concerns of survivors of sexual assault. The group released its first progress report in Nov. 2014, which was similar to the new report in structure, grading the University in a manner similar to a report card and offering suggestions on new policies to address shortcomings that the report explains.

In an email to the Justice, B.SASV member Evelyn Milford ’16 wrote that throughout this year, B.SASV has mostly worked to draft this report, saying, “We wanted to ensure that we were prepared for its release, and had plans in place depending on when/how the administration chose to respond.” B.SASV is also involved in planning the annual Take Back the Night march which will be on April 4, and is working to break down the parts of the Rights and Responsibilities handbook related to sexual violence into “consumable, sharable zines,” according to Milford.

“While changes have been made and work has been done to address the points in the previous progress report, not enough has been done within the last two years,” the report reads. “As members of the student body, administration and university at large, we need to drastically improve the ways in which sexual violence is handled at Brandeis.” The report goes on to say that it is “unacceptable” to have known perpetrators and abusers walk around campus, to have survivors and supporters be unaware of counseling and reporting options and “that Brandeis, as an institution, allows for these things to happen not only through a lack of response, but through actions like hiring known perpetrators for positions of power on campus.”

B.SASV’s report gives the University a “B/B-” on providing “clear and accessible information on existing reporting paths, options, and resources,” a nearly nonexistent improvement on the last report’s rating of a B-. The report calls for a poster listing University hotlines and resources for sexual assault survivors that was printed by the Office of Communications to be updated to include information on what happens after one reports an assault, to include a QR code for scanning that information and to be present in every University bathroom. They also ask for clearer online resources explaining the differences between mandated reporters — who are required under Title IX to formally report any instance of sexual assault they hear of — and more confidential resources. Lastly, B.SASV demands that these resources to be translated into at least Spanish, Korean and Mandarin for the aid of international students.

Next, B.SASV graded the University’s progress on hiring “a permanent on-call crisis response counselor” as a D, instead of the F it received on the last report. While calling the Rape Crisis Center’s hotline will always eventually lead to someone answering the call, according to B.SASV the call is rerouted several times if one calls after the RCC is closed. The group recommends that the University hire a staff member to permanently be on-call for this number, as well as several back-ups for when that person is unavailable. They also call for a pager system for all Psychological Counseling Center staff, as well as staff at the Office of Prevention Services, the Rape Crisis Center and those in jobs related to Title IX. Finally, they ask for an additional staffer at the OPS or RCC “whose position allows them to be by the phone more often and be on-call at all times.”

The greatest drop in grades for the University is on “a psychologist on the Psychological Counseling Center staff who specifically specializes in sexual trauma, violence and assault for long-term counseling.” Falling from a B+ to a D-, the report argues that since Kristin Huang left Brandeis in Fall 2015, the University has not yet hired a replacement trauma specialist, and B.SASV calls for this replacement to be a permanent clinician of color. Currently 12 clinicians on staff are trained in trauma counseling but are not specialists in the area, and while one staffer is fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin, the report calls for additional staffers fluent in these languages as well as Hindi, Korean and Spanish.

The first draft of the Progress Report stated that the PCC was considering limiting the 12 free sessions students are guaranteed in cases where the sessions were not “necessary,” but in an interview with the Justice, Senior Associate Director of the PCC Joy von Steiger said this was false. The report has since been updated to reflect that the proposed change is “no longer in effect,” saying that it was included in Orientation and Community Advisor trainings.

B.SASV rates the University’s progress on “Proper training of university staff, faculty, and administrators on the roles and responsibilities of mandated reporters and/or responsible employees under Title IX” as a C-, rather than last year’s D. The group recommends that all University staff and faculty receive compulsory bystander intervention training, and that Community Advisors both receive training and prominently display information on their doors about being mandated reporters. A CA told the Justice that currently, CAs are not mandated to receive bystander intervention training. However, the current group of CAs had planned on receiving bystander intervention training two weeks ago, before the death of Zimeng “Boots” Xue ’18 interrupted this plan.

Fifth, the report gives the University a “C/C-” on “Pro-social bystander intervention, effective consent and healthy relationship workshops offered at Orientation and extensively throughout the entire school year.” Last year’s grade was a “C-/D+.” Currently, the University offers a presentation to incoming students during Orientation called “Speak About It,” which is followed by discussions among Orientation groups. B.SASV calls for incoming students to additionally receive consent and bystander training, and that the Orientation CORE committee “works to seek out individuals prepared to safely and confidently lead these sessions.” In her email to the Justice, Milford wrote that “The first step would be to have RCC peer advocates assist [Orientation Leaders] in facilitating these discussions. Ideally, our long-term expectation is that this would include hiring professionals from local institutions like Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, and have them present for all groups.” She also said that Orientation leaders do not receive sufficient training for leading the discussions after Speak About It and that the discussions may potentially be triggering.

In an interview with the Justice, Director of Orientation Jenny Abdou said that while OLs are not currently required to receive bystander training, she personally ensures that they do as she feels strongly that they should receive this training. According to Abdou, Brandon Weintraub ’16 led training for the midyear OLs under the “Train the Trainer” model, and a company called True to Life Training trained August’s OL group. An SSIS presentation at Orientation also includes education on consent.

B.SASV gave the University a “C/C” on training Brandeis Public Safety officers, noting that 14 of the Department of Public Safety’s 28 total officers and executives are certified sexual assault investigators under the State of Massachusetts. They call for all officers to receive annual training from the company Margolis Healy by having the officers on duty during the main training attend a separate session. The trainings focus on “embedded cultural norms and interpretations, biased police reporting, best practices for diversity, equity and inclusion” according to B.SASV. The group additionally calls for University Police to develop an anonymous reporting method for providing feedback to the department.

Brandeis received an F on both 2014’s and this year’s report on “an effective campus-wide campaign to combat rape culture.” Arguing that student activism alone cannot adequately address rape culture at Brandeis, the group asks for a designated employee to create a wider knowledge of rape culture on campus. Milford also said that she hoped administrators would publish a formal response to the report. An unknown person also attached a report card with the B.SASV report’s grades to the statue of Louis D. Brandeis outside Sherman Dining Hall, along with a sign reading, “Louis, you’re still on probation.” This is a reference to a 2014 Justice editorial cartoon about the first report card, which depicted Louis Brandeis as receiving academic probation for his poor grades.