Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) released the following statement denouncing the Education Department’s decision to roll back protections for victims of sexual assault on college campuses:
“In the midst of an epidemic of sexual abuse on our college campuses, Secretary DeVos has chosen to strip protections from victims in order to confer virtual immunity on their attackers. The Trump administration’s failure to act to prevent sexual violence will go down as one of the great civil rights crises of our time.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women and one in 16 men will experience sexual assault in their lifetime. Today’s decision will discourage victims from reporting these incidents, while simultaneously making it more difficult for universities to reprimand perpetrators.