BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 967
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Date of Hearing: May 6, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
AB
967 (Williams) - As Amended April 23, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable:
Yes
SUMMARY:
This bill establishes minimum student disciplinary standards and
reporting requirements for sexual assault complaints received by
California Community College (CCC) districts, the California
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State University (CSU), the University of California (UC) and
independent postsecondary educational institutions.
Specifically, this bill requires all of the above entities, in
order to receive state funds for student financial assistance,
to:
1)Adopt and implement a uniform process for disciplinary
proceedings related to claims of sexual assault, including
policies that, at a minimum, conform to both of the following:
a) Not to provide a different disciplinary process on the
same campus based on the status of characteristic of any
student involved in a proceeding.
b) Implement a minimum standard of discipline of at least
two years suspension, and up to expulsion, for students
found guilty of rape, forced sodomy, force oral copulation,
or rape.
2)Report the following information annually: numbers of sexual
assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking
complaints received, investigated, and not investigated; the
number of investigations where respondents were found
responsible and not responsible, respectively, at disciplinary
proceedings; and the number of disciplinary sanctions imposed,
by the type of sanction.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Assuming average costs of around $3,000 per community college
district, statewide potential reimbursable state mandated
costs would be $216,000 (GF-Prop 98) annually.
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2)Any costs to UC and CSU will be absorbable.
COMMENTS:
Purpose. According to the author, "the state of California has
an obligation to provide a safe and secure learning environment
at our college and university campuses. Students, families, and
the general public need assurance that colleges and universities
take campus sexual assault seriously. The Washington Post
obtained data from approximately 100 institutions surveyed in
2012 and 2013; in regards to campus sanctions in sexual assault
cases they discovered that out of 478 sanctions for sexual
assault, only 12% resulted in expulsion and 28% resulted in
suspensions."
The author believes that in order to address rape culture on
college campuses, there needs to be meaningful sanctions that
truly serve as a deterrent. This bill is intended to provide
clear and consistent direction to colleges and universities on
imposing sanctions for sexual assault, and will require
reporting of adjudication outcome data to ensure compliance with
these standards.
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081
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