The president of the state Board of Regents told a legislative committee Monday that the new sexual assault policies approved by U.N.I., Iowa State University and the University of Iowa will improve the way the cases are handled in the future. The U-I’s handling of an alleged assault involving two former football players prompted the Regents to develop new policies.
Representative Kurt Swaim, a Democrat from Bloomfield, asked Regents president David Miles how the changes would impact students. Swaim asked him how the procedures implemented will prevent a gap in the policies and protection from happening again. Miles responded,"I think there are a whole host of things -clarity of the policies, a single point of contact – one of the things that happened in this case was that it wasn’t clear whether the athletic department was going to investigate or whether the office of student services was going to investigate. That’s no long an option."
Some lawmakers asked Miles why there isn’t one policy for all three state schools. "Some of the language is different but the formal policy…the ability to get an advocate immediately, the encouragement to contact law enforcement officials, a single entity being responsible for this…all of those are consistent, so I would say it’s primarily language choices," according to Miles.
Committee co-chair, Vicking Lensing, a Democrat from Iowa City, said after listening to Miles that she is pleased with the progress made since the U-I case last year.