It was apparent last night that students care deeply about the issue of sexual assault and relationship violence on campus. Of the more than 200-person group, about 25 students stood up to speak directly to the task force and share their experiences and suggest ways in which MSU could better service students who are affected by sexual assault. The sentiments expressed at the meeting by undergraduate and graduate students were primarily disappointment in MSU’s administration for not seriously addressing the issue of sexual assault on campus.

“The biggest problem that I see on a daily basis is that there are so many faculty who are mandatory reporters — they must report any case of sexual assault brought to them. But this isn’t always what the victim prefers and I think there should be resources to help students who might not want a formal investigation,” said Ian Palmieri, a resident's advisor and senior marketing major.

“There is a huge issue that is underlying in all of our comments tonight and it is that there is a deep mistrust in the university’s handling of sexual assault,” a student said.

Last night's meeting was the first public forum at MSU between the sexual assault task force and students.

“I think it is very effective for us in getting more novel ideas and also hearing about some gaps that wouldn’t be as obvious to us from the side we’re coming from,” faculty co-chair of the task force Nicole Buchanan said. “I hope that students will be able to see where we’re coming from and that our efforts are very genuine,” she went on to say.

“The task force goals were exactly what happened tonight, we really wanted to hear from students and hear the stories that you don’t always get when you’re reading a piece of paper,” Buchanan said.

After the meeting, 41 students assembled on the floor for a debrief to talk about what went right and what went wrong in their preparation and execution of the town hall meeting.

“We want to create accountability — we know that they heard us, and we could see some of them agreeing with us, and so that gives us some leverage,” student organizer and alumni from the residential college of arts and humanities Elle Abeles-allison said.

The task force cannot implement any new policies alone and will act as a middleman between students and the university moving forward.

“We (the taskforce) will draft a report and the university is going to go through the recommendations and sadly kind of independent of us, decide which things they can implement and when,” Buchanan said.

The town hall meeting was held amidst a Department of Education Office of Civil Rights review of MSU’s handling of sexual assault cases in the last four years, and was meant to be a forum for discussion between the sexual assault task force and students.

Sexual assault has been a topic in the minds of students since George Will’s controversial commencement speech last semester and new additions to the MSU sexual misconduct and relationship violence policy to reflect the White House’s additions to the Violence Against Women’s Act.

The Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives also released a report on their investigation into MSU’s sexual assault program last December. The report revealed that since August 2011, 174 reports of sexual misconduct involving students were filed to the office known as I3. 47 of those cases underwent investigation, and the other 127 did not undergo formal investigation due to either a claimant not being able to participate or no jurisdiction in the matter. 

Students who stayed after the meeting spoke adamantly about holding the university accountable in implementing changes to the ways they handle sexual assault and relationship violence.

“We’re here to advocate for students who weren’t here, and we are going to continue advocating hard,” Abeles-allison said.