Policy Problems on Campus: An Exploration of Macro-Level Policy Narratives About Sexual Violence in Higher Education

Policy narratives can, over time, create a grand narrative around a longstanding policy problem, offering insights into how those in power use storytelling to influence policy outcomes. The problem of sexual violence in higher education has been examined in academic literature for over 60 years by scholars across disciplines and has been a subject of the federal policymaking process for nearly as long. This study seeks to answer key questions regarding the themes, underlying social and political values, and conditions for change in the public narratives of federal policymakers advocating for solutions to sexual violence in higher education. The analysis focuses on publicly available narratives from a specific period, beginning with the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter and concluding with the 2017 Dear Colleague Letter. This study uses a qualitative content analysis approach to examine the public narratives of federal policymakers to identify recurring themes, values, and conditions for change, allowing a grand narrative to emerge from the findings. Four dominant themes emerged from the data: 1) the portrayal of colleges and universities as the dominant villain in the narratives, 2) the use of appeals to evidence and expertise as a narrative strategy without providing supporting sources or documentation, 3) the use of colorful language as a narrative strategy, and 4) the strategic use of repetition. The analysis revealed safety and legality as the two underlying social values. While both values were consistently present throughout the data, the speaker’s political party affiliation emerged as a condition for change, influencing the relative emphasis on safety versus legality. Recommendations for practice emphasize how higher education professionals can better understand the influence of macro-level narratives at the institutional and individual levels. Additionally, the study's findings contribute to the policy narrative research by positioning sexual violence in higher education within the context of grand narratives about difficult problems.

Keywords: Higher Education, Policy Narratives, Sexual Violence, Narrative Policy Framework, Macro-level Narratives