Over the past two years, the Gender Equity Coalition has focused on advocating for the reform of policies dealing with sexual violence prevention and response at the institutional level. Sexual violence is a structural problem and until just consequences are in place for committing such a crime, the structure of our workplaces as well as our trusted institutions will continue to enable perpetrators of sexual violence to evade repercussions for their actions.

The Good Faith Clause is an amendment we're proposing to Penn State University's student code of conduct that would prohibit students that have been under investigation for engaging in acts of sexual violence or misconduct from working in residential life job positions. If adopted the prohibition would be able to be appealed and only enforced when there is a reasonable belief that the perpetrator being in a power-position would cause an abject disruption to the psychological or physical safety of the students as well as the victim-survivor. 

 Sexual violence affects everyone, and on-campus sexual assault makes up 43% of all on-campus crimes in the U.S. (NCES, 2022) with 25% of undergraduate women being affected (Cantor et al., 2017) and 6.8% of undergraduate men (Cantor et al., 2020). Men in college are also 78% more likely to experience sexual violence than those who are not (Sinozich & Langton, 2014).  Many of these cases never get reported to university administrators because the chances of administrative action after reporting is often low. Together, we can begin to change that. Sign this petition with your name and affiliation (professor, undergraduate, graduate, etc.), help us get this proposition in front the Penn State Board of Trustees! If you'd like to read more in depth about the Good Faith Clause as well as view our sources, click the link here