22 Senators Request Increased Funding for OCR
The money would give the Office for Civil Rights more resources to handle investigations of sexual assault and Title IX violations.
Debbie Stabenow, a Democratic Senator from Michigan, was one of 22 lawmakers to sign the letter.
Twenty two U.S. senators have signed a letter formally requesting $137.7 million in funding from Congress for the Office for Civil Rights in 2017.
The request comes as the OCR investigates 201 cases of sexual misconduct or harassment and 169 colleges for potential Title IX violations, according to mlive.com.
The letter states that the funding is needed to keep pace with the rising number of complaints the office receives each year. The money would go towards hiring 11 additional employees that would help the “investigation and enforcement” of the Clery Act.
The letter also states that the office’s staff has shrunk to less than half pf what it was in 1980, despite the fact that the rate of complaints filed in that time tripled.
RELATED: No-Contact Orders Issued by Colleges Often Ignored
Campus Safety magazine had previously reported that the average time it took the office to resolve Title IX complaints in 2014 was over four years.
A previous report released by three U.S. senators last year showed that the number of sexual violence complaints increased ten fold between 2009 and 2014.
Read Next: 4 Questions Every Campus Should Ask When Hiring a Title IX Private Investigator
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