Baylor University Domestic Violence Funding Distribution Method Violates VAWA Sex Discrimination Provisions

In January, Congress reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, but with one small modification: State-level organizations that distribute federal domestic violence intervention funds may not deny funding solely because of the sex of the clientele served.

The Equal Justice Foundation and Domestic Violence Against Men in Colorado, organizations that help both men and women with abusive spouses, was recently invited to apply for Baylor funding, but quickly discovered that the application process at Baylor is designed to ensure that funding goes only to the most aggressive feminist organizations.

Every major study proves that women instigate serious domestic violence as frequently as men do. State agencies do only what they are funded to do, which means that only men are arrested, and are even presumed guilty for what women do. To pass Constitutional muster, federal funding must ensure equal protections and rights under the law, regardless of sex of the victim.  Any scheme effecting substantive disparities in due-process protections on the basis of sex is unconstitutional even if the language of the code appears neutral on its face. 

Baylor University’s F.A.C.T.S. program distributes VAWA federal funds to grantees on the basis of eligibility. While their eligibility requirements have largely been sanitized of sex-based determinors, they are geared to prefer “recognized” organizations that have a history of providing domestic violence services to women. I am not aware of any agencies that help abused men which are funded though Baylor-distributed grants.

The smoking gun: Page one of the Baylor grant application [PDF] specifically asks “Number of years organization has spent working on violence against women issues?” No organization that helps men can answer this question affirmatively.

The application requirements [PDF] of Baylor’s funding scheme make it quite clear that only the most radical and aggressive organizations that help women will be funded:

1. Grantees are not required to report the sex of the alleged victim. Grantees are only required to report the number of individuals served. As with previous VAWA methods, it is assumed that all agencies help women, and all victim data reported is about victimized women. Failure to collect sex-specific data ensures that all data will flow into the scientific lie that only women are abused. [Application element 5].

2. Funding is disallowed to grantees who provide mediation or couples counseling as a “systemic” response to domestic violence.  Baylor’s program only provides funding to destroy families.  86% of serious domestic violence involves a spouse who has a drinking or drugging problem.  The vast majority of serious violence would be prevented simply by helping the responsible spouse get the other one into treatment before chemical abuse and family conflict becomes clinical.  Imagine the derision Men’s assistance programs would receive if the only thing they did was to throw wives with substance-abuse problems out on the street.

3. Intervention programs that do not use coercive force of the criminal justice system are denied funding.

4. Agencies that allow perpetrators to enter pre-trial diversion programs or voluntary batterer intervention programs are expressly denied funding.

In effect, Baylor’s application clearly indicates that it intends to fund only grantees that stridently use restraining orders obtained on behalf of women to terminate marriage. Only the most radical, anti-family feminist organizations will score at the top of the Baylor grant application process.

Where faith-based organizations are highly unlikely to limit themselves solely to extremist approaches, they are effectively disqualified as well.  The only applicants left standing after procedural elimination of faith-based organizations and those who help men are feminist organizations.

There is no excuse or reason justifying the steering of federal funds to radical organizations that only bomb husbands into oblivion.  This response is sensible in only the minority of serious cases.

Congress has again delivered billions into the hands of the most misandric radicals on this planet.  If Congress agrees with Baylor’s method of funding, perhaps Congress should also craft code that permits state agencies handing out funding to solely fund organizations that only provide abortion.

Congress should take immediate action to disqualify Baylor as a major grant distributor of VAWA funds. President Bush would be wise to zero-out VAWA funding, and send the bill back for a full pro-family rewrite by Congress -- one that proactively addresses the true sources of family violence before hell breaks loose.  Nothing would help America's families more than this.

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David R. Usher is Senior Policy Analyst for the True Equality Network, and President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition