Talking Points

First of all, thanks for the amazing work everyone. The CUNY taskforce will be meeting tomorrow. Finally!!!!

Here are the talking points which Elischia and I have come up with to talk about the Policy. Please contact us if you would like for us to come and speak in person. In addition, I will be blogging about each point individually. Here are the talking points.

• Federal Law requires colleges to have policies on sexual assault.
  
• There is no Uniform CUNY Policy for Sexual Assault.
  
• Different CUNY Sexual Assault Policies have different repercussions for perpetrators
  
• Underlying assumption of current CUNY Sexual Assault Policy is for Victim's to pursue sexual assault through the criminal justice system; however, we have to keep in mind that in the criminal justice system, 15 out of 16 rapists walk free and that 60% of rape/sexual assault are never reported(RAINN.ORG).
  
• Research conducted on urban commuter students shows that approximately 27% of female students reported being sexually assaulted in the past year.
  
• 2.78 million men in the United States are victims of sexual assault or rape (National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women Survey. 1998
  
• From 23 CUNY campuses serving 400,000 students, only 4 sex offenses were reported in 2005.
  
• 1 out of every 10 rape victims was male in 2003(U.S Department of Justice. 2003 National Crime Victimization Survey)
  
• CUNY Sexual Assault Policy will address the needs and concerns of different groups in CUNY. These different groups include students of different ethnic and religious groups, and the LGBTQ community.
  
• CUNY's Sexual Assault Policy must include an educational component and be prevention based
  
• Awareness and transparency of the Sexual Assault Policy is important

Become involved! Email us at cunypolicy08@gmail.com. We currently have an immediate need for:

* Organizations and individuals to endorse our cause (willing to sign a letter of support)
* Organizations and individuals to join Students for a Greater CUNY as a member
* A tech-savvy person that is good with website building
* Skilled writers to chronicle CUNY's progress for the students on blogs and through campus media
* Student leaders or organizations that will facilitate setting up 3 town hall meetings within the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn, so public opinions can be heard on the draft of the policy.