United States and English university responses to student disclosures of sexual violence

This thesis compares how universities in the United States and England respond to student disclosures of sexual violence. Despite similarities in student populations and victimisation rates (Phipps & Smith, 2012), the US and England have divergent response models for sexual violence in universities: The US has a national legal framework through Title IX while England encourages individual responses following Universities UK’s (2016) Changing the Culture report. Only two studies discuss sexual violence in comparative university contexts: Fisher and Wilkes (2003) studied crime victimisation on US and English campuses, while Towl and Walker (2019) researched barriers to reporting sexual violence in universities across North America, Europe, and Australia. This thesis contributes to existing scholarship on sexual violence in universities by expanding the knowledge base of comparative institutional responses. Through policy discourse analysis, interviews with 26 staff members across 10 diverse universities throughout the US and England, and interviews with 19 self-selected student survivors across the two countries, this thesis argues that, in responding to student disclosures of sexual violence, these US and English universities prioritised protecting their institutional reputation over survivor wellbeing. This research utilises a close reading of experiences to offer in-depth analyses of staff and students’ engagement in and perceptions of university responses; while it does not aim to extrapolate individual experiences to represent experiences of disclosure more generally, there is a clear pattern that emerges across contexts and institutions. It uses theories from feminist scholarship, sociology, education, and organisational studies to position this tendency towards protecting reputation as a reflection of neoliberalism in the academy (Phipps, 2018). Ultimately, by highlighting the commonality of reputation protection in US and English university responses to sexual violence, this thesis opens up space to challenge the global structures that produce such a similar—and harmful—response in different contexts.