After 51 Years of Service the Rape Victim Advocacy Program at the University of Iowa is Being Shut Down
Why? To fulfill a political agenda...
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As a preface, and as the title suggests, I would like to give you the answer as to why I think the center is being shut down. Then, I direct you to excellent reporting on the issue by Iowa Public Radio’s Zachary Oren Smith to provide the background you might need to evaluate my thesis.
Smith’s reporting is comprehensive and detailed, sharing the facts of the upcoming closure and profound stories of victims and those who help them. Powerfully written, thanks to Smith we see the clear human costs if these programs are compromised. He lays out as much as he can about internal deliberations at the University of Iowa on the issue, but in my reading, it’s tough to tell what is really going on because not everyone involved is talking no matter how hard he digs in. This is outstanding reporting.
It’s likely impossible to know what’s going on behind the scenes with any interaction between the University and Governor Kim Reynolds’ administration. Given that everyone at our state institutions of higher learning serves at the whim of the Governor, I suspect she has her knee on the neck of the University administration.
I believe the program is being shut down to divert public funds into private hands that align closely with Governor Kim Reynolds, Attorney General Brenna Bird’s, and Iowa Republicans’ anti-government, anti-education, and anti-abortion agendas. While I don’t know this for a fact, we have seen the formula in action multiple times in Iowa before. With privatized Medicaid, with taxpayer dollars going to private schools, and the partial dismantling of our Area Education Agencies. I have also written that there is evidence Reynolds is doing the same with our state parks. Much if not all of this is happening across most red states.
The Republican formula is simple; first, sow distrust of government in general, and underfund specific government agencies while saying the private sector can do it better, thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that government doesn't work well. Undermine those who work in those public institutions to demoralize workers and further destabilize the program. Then privatize the agency or parts of its services, putting public money into private hands who will use it to help fulfill the Republican agenda. It’s a variant of the Mohawk Valley Formula. It’s a plan for strikebreaking, purportedly written by the president of the Remington Rand company James Rand, Jr., around the time of the Remington Rand strike at Ilion, New York, in 1936-37. I wrote about how Republicans used it to attack our public schools here.
Now to Smith’s reporting.
Iowa Public Radio’s Zachary Oren Smith documents the abrupt closure of the Rape Victim Advocacy Program (RVAC) at the University of Iowa. The program has been shut down after 51 years of serving southeast Iowa rape victims in eight counties. Advocates who work for the program “are trained to help survivors navigate the medical and legal system as they seek care, justice and life after their assault.”
According to IPR:
The university called the closure of RVAP a ‘transition,’ saying services will continue through the Iowa City-based Domestic Violence Intervention Program (DVIP). The closure came as a surprise to workers, and the counties they served.
This announcement strained relationships with clients, advocates and partners, including law enforcement agencies. It is against this backdrop that DVIP has been tasked with building a sexual violence support service from the ground up. And it has to do so before the university closes RVAP on Sept. 30.
Each year, RVAP has a $1 million budget to provide advocacy services across the region. While the university says services will not lapse during the "transfer" to DVIP, the organization says its staffing for new services is contingent on new funding. And DVIP learned it would have to compete with other organizations for the large federal grant that the Iowa Attorney General’s Office uses to fund comprehensive sexual assault services for the area…
Most of RVAP’s funding, about $526,000, comes from federal dollars that pass through the Iowa Attorney General’s Office for disbursement. The single largest funding block was about $401,000 for comprehensive sexual assault services. On April 17, the attorney general’s office issued a request for proposals from providers who could serve RVAP’s region.
According to IPR, these proposals are due May 31.
Remember that with the closure of RVAP, DVIP is tasked with gearing up to replace RVAP, even though it may not get the contract.
You probably remember that:
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird suspended payments to cover emergency contraception for survivors of sexual assault, a moratorium that began at the start of 2023 and hasn’t been lifted since.
“While not required by Iowa law, the victim compensation fund has previously paid for Plan B and abortions. As a part of her top-down, bottom-up audit of victim assistance, Attorney General Bird is carefully evaluating whether this is an appropriate use of public funds,” Bird’s office wrote in a release. “Until that review is complete, payment of these pending claims will be delayed."
A year later, Bird said she is still working on an audit of these services and continues to hold up funding emergency contraception for survivors.
RVAP never covered the cost of abortions, but it did help survivors recoup money they spent on over-the-counter emergency contraception medications like Plan B. Following Bird’s suspension of funding this medication for survivors, RVAP continued to cover these costs.
While RVAP as an organization did not officially distribute Plan B pills, staffers did in an individual capacity.
It’s a done deal. And Reynolds didn’t have to go to the legislature to do it. Applications to replace the services RVAP provided for the past 51 years are due May 31, and I suspect the counseling services provided by whatever private entity(ies) get the contract won’t include counseling related to abortion. And most certainly Plan B contraception won’t be made available to those who have been raped.
I hope I’m wrong. Women who have been sexually assaulted deserve to be advised of all alternatives available to them by trained and compassionate professionals, as they have been for 51 years—not Kim Reynolds, not Brenna Bird, and not Iowa Republican legislators. I suspect other agencies who provide these services across the state are next.
Big picture? One more step in the effort of MAGA extremists to turn us into an anti-democratic right-wing “Christian” authoritarian state.