Over the past few months, there has been a staggering cascade of sexual-misconduct allegations waged against powerful men, such as Hollywood moguls and prominent politicians. Most of the allegations have focused on behavior in the workplace, but the movement, come to be known as the #MeToo movement, has been reverberating on college campuses across the country. Students flooded social media with their own stories of harassment and misconduct on campus. Amelia Goldberg, a junior at Harvard College and member of the student-run anti-sexual-violence group Our Harvard Can Do Better, told The Atlantic that the experience on campus was a “collective airing of trauma.” According to the Harvard Crimson, the school has seen a 20 percent increase in sexual-harassment complaints since the allegations against Weinstein surfaced in October. For Title IX officers, who are tasked with ensuring that colleges comply with the federal law that’s used to address sexual harassment, the perceived uptick only reaffirms what they already know about sexual assault: colleges and universities have long been aware that harassment occurs at high rates on their campuses. Between a growing awareness of these issues and a push from the Obama administration to make combating sexual harassment and violence a priority, colleges became much more deliberate about addressing the issue. After this, the institutions, in turn, began to see a steady rise in reporting rates. But now, the current Education Department is working to overhaul these policies and it is unclear what the landscape will look like once deliberations are over. It is also unclear how long the #MeToo movement will last and what the long-term consequences will do.
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