The National Panhellenic Council withdrew its support of the Safe Campus Act Friday due to concerns about the bill raised by members and advocacy groups.
One Less, a sexual assault education group at the University, has been vocal about its concerns regarding the Safe Campus Act.
One Less Policy Chair Kaija Flood, a graduate Batten student, said the group is happy NPC dropped its support of the bill.
“I don’t doubt that the NPC had positive intentions when they were supporting the passage of this bill because on its face, it does look like it will help survivors,” Flood said. “After digging a little deeper, a lot of advocates that act on behalf of survivors were against it. Ultimately, it would have been harmful.”
NPC withdrew its support of this legislation, which was introduced in July, based on concern from its members, according to a statement released by the NPC.
“Our member organizations and NPC leadership have listened to the groundswell of concern among our members and are refocusing our legislative agenda,” the statement read. “To that end, NPC is withdrawing its support of the Safe Campus Act.”
NPC spokeswoman Greta Snell said the NPC was not available for further interviews at this time.
A primary concern for One Less is the provision requiring survivors of sexual assault to report the incident to police for the crime to be investigated by the University. The group also took issue with the bill’s proposed changes to standards of evidence in sexual assault cases.
“One Less understood the concerns the NPC was trying to address when pushing the Safe Campus Act,” Flood said. “But the way that the legislation was worded and what it would entail would hurt survivors’ rights and would have discouraged reporting of sexual assault.”
However, Flood said the Safe Campus Act does contain some beneficial measures.
“The act did have certain components of increasing training for faculty and staff at universities,” Flood said. “Those are definitely positive things that we would have liked to see incorporated in a future bill, but our concerns outweighed those positives.”
In September, One Less wrote an open letter to Congress in the Huffington Post opposing the Safe Campus Act, and the group hosted an information session for the Inter-Fraternity Council and the Inter-Sorority Council about their concerns with the legislation.
“Although we didn’t support this bill, we certainly support change on the federal and state legislative levels,” Flood said. “We hope that attention to this issue will continue among policymakers because it’s obviously very important.”
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