University of California system President Janet Napolitano credited sexual assault survivors and their advocacy groups with raising the issue of rape on campus to a point where school leaders can no longer avoid the issue.
During a Thursday interview with HuffPost Live, Napolitano drew a parallel to the Anita Hill hearing, which she said highlighted the "ubiquitous" of sexual harassment in the work place. Hill testified during Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court about sexual harassment she said she faced while working with him at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Department of Education.
"The plain fact is that everyone deserves -- whether they're at a university or whether they're in a workplace -- to be safe and secure and not to constantly feel they're at risk," Napolitano said. "When we fast forward to now on college campuses we're really trying to change the culture more than anything else."
Student misconduct proceedings, where a college adjudicates sexual violence, still need to be streamlined between campuses, Napolitano said.
Currently, five of the UC system's 10 campuses are under federal Title IX investigations over their handling of sexual assault on campus.
Funding training and independent advocates for sexual violence survivors, and being in a position to "take prompt and appropriate action" when things "do go awry" were some of the things Napolitano said her universities will do to regain trust about their handling of assault cases.
Watch the full interview in the video above, or watch the full segment here, and be sure to tune into HuffPost Live at 11 a.m. this week as we continue our discussion of the topic.
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