Rep. Ro Khanna is pushing a bill that would force colleges to report sexual assault incidents and lay out clear, uniform rules for how they investigate them. The legislation, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, has just been reintroduced in Congress with heavyweights from both parties signing on.
The bipartisan, bicameral push pairs Khanna (D-California) and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) in the House with Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in the Senate, where the bill was introduced as S.2990 in October 2025 and referred to the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. It amends the Higher Education Act and the Jeanne Clery Act — the federal law named for a student murdered on campus in 1986 that requires colleges to publish campus crime statistics.
Under the proposal, schools would have to post campus safety policies, annual security reports, instructions for filing complaints, and statistics on sexual misconduct allegations on their websites. Each college would designate trained sexual and interpersonal violence specialists to serve as confidential aides for victims, with the Education Department setting the training standards. Students who report assaults in good faith could not be punished for lesser conduct revealed in the report — like underage drinking — and schools would be required to use one uniform, fair disciplinary process that protects both survivors and accused students, with new notification requirements for both sides.
The bill would also push schools to sign agreements with local law enforcement so investigations are coordinated rather than buried on campus, expand the Violence Against Women Act campus grant program to cover sexual harassment, and order a federal study of how well those grants are working.
Khanna cites the sponsors' figure that one in five women and one in sixteen men experience sexual assault on campus, saying stigma and complicated systems keep many survivors from reporting. Gillibrand said Congress has not taken the necessary action, while Grassley said inconsistent enforcement is failing to treat the crime with the seriousness it deserves and called for swift action.
The bill has been introduced before — in 2013, 2017, and 2024 — and died in committee each time. The sponsors say students cannot learn if they do not feel safe. Its fate now sits with the committees it was referred to.