Gender Violence In Sexual Assault Cases

Gender violence is an ongoing issue in the United States. This year has been a year of many sexual assault cases. The recent most popular showed in the media is a Columbia student, Emma Sulkowicz who carried her mattress around campus to protest her rapists continued presence at the school (Brodsky & Deutsch, 2014). Emma brought her sexual assault to attention, but this was not the first time a sexual assault has occurred on a college campus or unfortunately the last. “In 1976, the Yale undergraduate had refused to acquiesce to her professor’s sexual demands—the disappointment of which, he told her, would earn her a C instead of an A. Price reported the events to Yale’s administration, but, as she later testified in federal court, school officials

In 1994 action took place and we the people thought we had made a step in the right direction to end gender violence. On September 13, 1994 President Bill Clinton had signed into law the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA). “VAWA included provisions on rape and battering that focused on prevention, funding for victim services and evidentiary matters. It included the first federal criminal law against battering and a requirement that every state afford full faith and credit to orders of protection issued anywhere in the United States.” (Legal Momentum: The Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund,

Morrison was a case that followed after VAWA was put into law. The Supreme Court Trail ruled that the Violence Against Women Act was unconstitutional. The statute provided a damage remedy for the victim against any person "who commits a crime of violence motivated by gender." Statute contained "findings" on how gender motivated violence affects interstate commerce by deterring potential victims from traveling interstate, from getting jobs, etc. The Supreme Court held that gender motivated crimes are not and economic activity (United States vs. Morrison, 2000). The commerce clause has been used to uphold intrastate activity only where that activity is economic in nature. The Supreme Court ruling states that there is a distinction between national and local authority. Every "act/statute" can have a story, but allowing that would give Congress the power to regulate any crime as long as nationwide, aggregated impact of that crime has substantial effects on the employment, production, transit, or consumption (United States vs. Morrison, 2000). States continue not to be trusted to undertake what they’ve always been responsible at the state level- the state police power statutes criminal and civil address this not inherently economic or commercial thing. This is something that is inherently local – states generally have their own civil and criminal remedies for this sort of action, they say that there is no evidence for states to enforce their own courses of