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About the Foundation

The William A. Percy Foundation for Social and Historical Studies is an IRS-approved tax-exempt organization incorporated in the State of Delaware and licensed to do business in the States of Texas and California. The purpose of the Foundation is to support scholarly research and public education that promotes better understanding and greater tolerance of human sexual diversity. Projects eligible for support will include, but need not be limited to, awards recognizing outstanding scholarship or activism, academic conferences, public lectures, subvention of scholarly or journalistic books, articles, and films, translation of existing publications into other languages, creation and maintenance of websites or other electronic media, interviews and quantitative surveys of non-clinical populations, travel to conduct or present research at libraries, archives, or conferences, and advertising to promote public awareness of sexual minorities and their cultural contributions. In selecting award recipients the Directors of the Foundation shall give special consideration to qualified individuals who lack permanent academic positions and can demonstrate financial need.

In selecting projects, the Directors of the Foundation shall give the highest priority to those that study, in a non-judgmental and compassionate manner, sexual minorities and practices that tend to be marginalized or ignored by mainstream scholarship and media.

In addition, the Foundation may accept donations of books, documents, and visual materials for the use of qualified researchers who support the Foundation’s goals of sexual freedom and liberation or for redistribution to incarcerated individuals who lack access to adequate library resources, but it shall expend resources on acquiring such materials only in very exceptional cases.

The Foundation shall not support any projects that advocate or provide instruction in violating the laws of the United States or any state thereof. It also shall not endorse any specific proposed legislation or candidates for political office.

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Friday, April 29 and Saturday, April 30, 2016
at U Texas / Austin in Flawn Academic Center 21

This conference aims to bring into dialogue scholars, administrators, social workers, policy experts, and legal professionals to interrogate the concept of sexual consent. US Department of Education guidelines for the implementation of Title IX, the Clery Act and the Campus Accountability and Safety Act now pending in Congress, recent legislation in California, and attention to "campus rape culture" in the media have thrust upon university administrators responsibility for policing student sexual conduct to an unprecedented degree. Pointing to well-publicized cases where students or fraternities were prematurely sanctioned for rapes that were later revealed not to have occurred, some have doubted whether university officials have been adequately equipped to investigate and adjudicate these issues. While acknowledging that sexual assault among students is a serious problem, others have questioned whether educational institutions should be required, as they are by the recent California law, to apply a strict requirement of affirmative verbal consent or “preponderance of evidence” standards that exceed the traditional criteria of criminal law. How does the ubiquity of alcohol and other intoxicants in student social life complicate assessment of consent, and should they be more stringently regulated in the interest of creating a rape-free environment? How should educational institutions best balance the rights of the accused with the need to protect victims from a threatening environment?

Scholars of gender and sexuality in the Humanities and Social Sciences have much to contribute to debates about the semiotics and parameters of consent. Should the responsibility of educational administrators to promote a rape-free environment on campus also extend to classroom educators teaching and discussing the ethics of sexual consent as encountered in history, literature, the arts, and social research? How can free and objective discussion be promoted in an environment of mandatory "trigger warnings" about material that some students might deem sensitive or objectionable in light of subjective experiences of trauma? Can international legal perspectives on rape and consent inform current American debates? Do practices of negotiating consent in subaltern communities, such as BDSM subcultures and anonymous gay sex venues, have anything to contribute to its mainstream articulation? How should any theory of consent protect the sexual rights of minors or those who are mentally impaired due to senility, illness, or other disabilities? In May 2015, the influential American Law Institute released a Model Penal Code recommending that the “affirmative consent” standard mandated for college campuses in the California law should be incorporated into state criminal statutes more generally. Does the enhanced policing of sexual conduct on campus therefore presage broader changes in the criminalization of sexuality throughout society? The conference aims to open interdisciplinary discourse on these complex and timely issues.

Links to videos of the conference are available here

Friday, November 22 - Sunday, November 24, 2013
Eidman Courtroom, Room 2.306
Connally Center for Justice (CCJ), School of Law
The University of Texas at Austin
727 East Dean Keeton Street

The conference will focus on several difficult issues at the intersection of sexual self-determination and human rights, including same-sex marriage and family, the potential and limits of anti-discrimination laws, transgender rights, sex work and trafficking, youth sexuality, pornography as it affects minors, and the regulation of sex offenders. Individual papers will explore European and American attitudes and practices on each of these issues, with the goal of presenting new conceptual paradigms for future reform efforts. The conference brings together academics, practicing attorneys and therapists, state policy makers, and activists from various points of view.

Sponsored by the University of Texas, Austin, Center for European Studies, the European Union Center of Excellence, the European Union, the William A. Percy Foundation for Social and Historical Studies, the Department of Germanic Studies, and the Swedish Endowment

Links to videos of all conference sessions follow:

Marriage and Family Rights – session 1

Transgender Rights – session 2

Employment DIscrimination – session 3

Youth Sexual Rights – session 4

Pornography and Children – session 5

Sex Work, Migration, and Trafficking – session 6

Do Sex Offenders Have Human Rights? – session 7

Therapeutic Approaches to Sex Offending – session 8