“Consent is hot, assault is not” are words plastered all across the walls of Berkeley High School, put there with the hope that most students would find it to be common sense. However, just a few years ago, many students at BHS didn’t view consent in the same way. In 2020, hundreds of BHS students participated in walkouts against school rape culture, arguing that the Berkeley Unified School District didn’t do enough in response to student complaints of sexual assault and other misconduct. Title IX is a civil rights law prohibiting discrimination by sex in schools, including protections against sexual harassment. At the time, filing Title IX complaints against sexual harassment was perceived to be a tedious process that didn’t result in much change. “I think that at that point in time, students were really upset with the way that BUSD as a whole was handling Title IX complaints,” Sophia Koshland, co-president of the BHS Women’s Student Union (WSU), said.
Jasmina Viteskic, BUSD’s Title IX Coordinator and Compliance Officer, said, “Title IX was created 50 years ago, and it was sort of initially meant to eliminate discrepancies (in funding) between female and male sports, because female sports were usually significantly underfunded … and then it became this overall non-discrimination rule against any form of sex-based discrimination.”
In 2020 many students in WSU were unsatisfied with how Title IX complaints were handled and rape culture overall, and decided to organize in order to create change. On Feb. 10 and 11, 2020, they organized the walkouts attended by hundreds of BHS students. After the walkouts, “the Berkeley High Woman Student Union actually sued the Federal Department of Education for the changes (made by the Trump Administration) to the Title IX regulation,” Viteskic said. Although the lawsuit — due to a procedural defect in how the case was filed — was not successful, the activism by BHS students shows the importance of the issue, and the passion and fighting spirit of the student body.
Victoria Butterfield, a wellness counselor at BHS, commented on this activism. “As a woman, that makes me very proud that a group of students would come forward to try to implement more change so that students felt safe.”
WSU was a major reason for the walkouts and demands that students made. Koshland said, “Berkeley High (School) has done a lot of things to improve their compliance to Title IX, and I think a lot of that does come from the student activism.”
Cassandra Tesch, Dean of Students said, “We want to make sure that everyone is safe and that, when there are reports of instances of sexual harassment (or) sexual assault, they’re dealt with in an appropriate manner and in accordance with the law.”
Although Viteskic had been in the role of Title IX Coordinator and Compliance Officer for about five years, before her the position wasn’t one that was kept for very long by each employee hired. Viteskic said, “(Before) I joined in 2021, most of the Title IX Coordinators stayed less than a year.” Additionally, according to Viteskic, Joe Biden’s presidency brought more regulations to Title IX. During that time, Viteskic said, “It went from an idea, a concept of protection, (to) a robust procedure right under which violations are investigated.”
Now it’s been five years since the walkouts and the lawsuits. Even though improvement can always be made, it’s important to acknowledge that, thanks to student activism, BHS has become a much safer environment than it used to be. Schools in BUSD now regularly teach consent through programs that aim to make BHS a safe environment, like Green Dot and BHS Stop Harassing. Viteskic said, “I think that we’ve made progress since 2020. However, I would like to see us be even better and even more sort of responsive. So there’s still work to do.” Although Title IX has come a long way, the duty to ensure that future generations are protected by the law still remains.