20 U.S.C. § 1161l–6 — Online survey tool for campus safety

(a) In general. The Secretary of Education, consulting with the Attorney General, the CDC Director, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and experts in the listed forms of violence and harassment, must develop, design, and make available through a secure, accessible online portal a standardized survey about postsecondary students’ experiences with domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and stalking. (b) Development. The Secretary must (1) use best practices from peer-reviewed research measuring those subjects; (2) consult the higher-education community, survey researchers, and organizations involved in prevention, response, or victim advocacy, including culturally specific populations and people with disabilities, about the survey and its administration; and (3) make the survey readily accessible and usable by people with disabilities. (c) Elements. (1) The survey must be fair, unbiased, scientifically valid and reliable, meet the highest survey-research standards, and tell participants that anonymized results may be published. (2) Its questions must (A) gather information about student experiences, including victims’ experiences; (B) use trauma-informed language to avoid re-traumatization; and (C) include (i) optional demographic questions; (ii) questions measuring incidence and prevalence; (iii) questions about students’ knowledge of institutional policies and procedures; (iv) for reported incidents, questions about (I) to whom the incident was reported and the response, (II) whether the victim was told about or referred to national, State, local, Tribal, or campus resources, and (III) whether the recipient investigated, how long it took, and the final result; (v) questions about context, including force, incapacitation, or coercion; (vi) whether the accused was a student; (vii) whether the victim reported to Federal, State, local, Tribal, or campus law enforcement; (viii) why the victim did or did not report to the institution or law enforcement; (ix) effects on education, including lower grades, dropped classes, leaves of absence, and negative financial effects such as lost tuition, scholarships, foreign-student visas, and counseling, medical, or housing costs; (x) the effect and effectiveness of prevention, awareness, and complaint processes; (xi) attitudes toward sexual violence and harassment, including willingness to intervene as a bystander in sex-, race-, national-origin-, or disability-based discrimination, harassment, assault, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, or stalking, including conduct against lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (“LGBT”) people; and (xii) other questions the Secretary decides. (3) With the Secretary’s review and approval, an institution may request extra information to better understand school-climate factors unique to its affiliated campuses. (4) Responses must (A) be confidential, (B) not be included in crime statistics, and (C) contain no personally identifying information if included in a report. (d) Administration. (1) Consulting with the Attorney General, CDC Director, and HHS Secretary, the Secretary must create a mechanism allowing institutions to (A) administer the survey and (B) modify it with institution-determined extra elements or requirements, subject to the Secretary’s approval. (2) The Secretary may not charge an institution for such a modification. (3) The Secretary must ensure accessible and usable administration for people with disabilities. (4) No later than one year after the mechanism is made available, and every two years afterward, each institution receiving Federal educational assistance must administer the survey. (e) Completed surveys. The Secretary must require each administering institution, as practicable, to obtain an adequate, random, representative sample of enrolled students, with sample size determined by the Secretary. (f) Report. (1) No later than two years after March 15, 2022, the Secretary must (A) prepare a report every two years on information from the standardized survey elements and publish it accessibly on the Education Department website, including in any Department online consumer tool about particular postsecondary institutions, such as the College Scorecard or a successor or similar tool, and (B) submit it to Congress. (2) The report must (A) include campus-level data for each institution, identified by campus name so institutions and campuses can be compared, and (B) not publish individual responses. (g) Publication. Each institution must publish in an accessible and usable way (1) its affiliated campuses’ campus-level results from the standardized elements, on its website and in the subsection (f) biennial report; and (2) campus-level results from any extra elements the institution used, on its website.