Rather than hire additional sexual and relationship violence prevention and victim support staff as demanded by over 50 student organizations and over 53,000 petition signatures, ASU moved its two police department victim advocates into the counseling department, however one position is currently vacant. The ASU Police Victim Advocate supervisor, the advocate who failed to support Alayna last year when ASU violated her federal rights, is no longer employed by ASU. The lead ASU Police detective on Alayna’s case is also no longer employed by ASU. Despite these personnel changes, ASU refuses to reimburse Alayna for legal and therapy fees incurred as a result of ASU PD’s mishandling of her 2020 sexual assault case (#JusticeForAlayna).
To address systemic problems illuminated by Alayna and other survivors (#MeTooASU), ASU must invest in both increased sexual violence prevention and support by hiring new staff. Moving existing advocates out of the police department is the bare minimum. We do not trust the current Victim Services advocate as she was part of the police department’s Victim Advocacy division subject to multiple complaints from students who were ignored or discouraged.
We are disappointed (but not surprised) that communication regarding sexual assault victim services does not appear to be of high priority to ASU, despite our January 2021 presentation of survivor horror stories. The new Victim Services office has not been announced to the ASU community via university-wide email/announcement, and students and staff are confused. As of October 11, 2021, there is no mention of Victim Services on ASU’s Sexual Violence Awareness, Prevention & Response website homepage, nor the “Get Immediate Assistance” page; multiple clicks and scrolling are required before reaching information on non-police victim advocates. Victim Services is not linked on the website’s “Get Help” dropdown menu. The “Where do I start?” page contains multiple links to the ASU Police Department, not the new Victim Services, and Victim Services is not listed under “Resource contact information.” ASU’s new Here4U.care website links only to ASU PD Victim Advocates and does not give information on the new Victim Services office.
We continue to demand that ASU provide sexual violence prevention and response services comparable to what University of California campuses provide, which serve as the basis for the ASU CAARE Center proposal. Thank you to all 57 endorsing organizations, and to all of the students who submitted our questions at September’s forum with President Crow; without your insistence, ASU would probably be even less transparent about these important public safety issues.
Join the #CAARECenterNow movement by sharing our petition (Change.org/Alaya-ASU), endorsing the CAARE proposal (bit.ly/endorse-caare), and registering for our meeting this Thursday, October 14 (bit.ly/sdasa1014) where we’ll discuss keeping the pressure on ASU to provide real change!