The Survivors Pro Bono, established in 2023 by Stanford student organizers, co-sponsored a California bill on April 7, mandating that survivors of sexual violence participating in Title IX proceedings at California institutions are provided a support person and legal advisor.

David Millman, J.D. ’27 and The Survivors Pro Bono co-founder Riya Ranjan ’26 led the efforts, providing testimony before the Committee of Higher Education. The legislation, Assembly Bill 1928: Student Care and Counsel Act, was authored and introduced by Assemblymember Mike Fong of District 49. The amendment passed the Committee of Higher Education with a vote of 10-0. Over the next few weeks, it will travel through the Judiciary and Appropriations committees before proceeding to the House floor. 

Ranjan founded the organization with Ashton Woods J.D. ’24 while taking Stanford Law School (SLS) professor Michele Dauber’s class “LAW 7065: One in Five: Campus Policies of Sexual Violence.” The Survivors Pro Bono, a nonprofit organization that has a student clinic at Stanford, provides legal representation for people going through sexual violence proceedings across California.

Ranjan shared that they wanted to address the “scarce resources for survivors” in a process that is often re-traumatizing and has become overly litigious in the past decade. In 2020, the Trump Administration mandated live cross-examination in sexual conduct proceedings. Although it was later rescinded by the Biden administration, it is now allowed at the discretion of secondary institutions. Survivors at Stanford go through cross-examination by respondents’ lawyers.

Millman, the law student co-lead for the nonprofit, spoke of feeling “powerless” when he saw his friends go through the Title IX process during his time at Dartmouth. “I was drawn to the Survivors Pro Bono clinic in particular because I think it’s the exact resource that my friends could have used,” Millman said.

“There’s really no reasonable way to go through [proceedings] without proper legal representation,” Ranjan said. She explained that those accused are often more likely to have the resources to hire external attorneys to represent them. This is not only an economic barrier for many survivors, but also an economic consideration for lawyers. According to Ahmed Mostafa, Executive Director of The Survivors Pro Bono, Title IX case law inherently benefits those accused who can often pay in full.

The Survivors Pro Bono clinic runs out of SLS, with Mostafa serving as the supervising attorney. Mostafa leads a team of law students who work with 15-20 clients a year. For Mostafa, his goal is to “give clients peace,” with each case guided by survivor-directed decision-making and trauma-informed care.

Title IX proceedings can be drawn out through multiple years while survivors are managing being a student, their personal life and professional endeavors, and often struggle to find the right person to turn to.

Currently, survivors are forced to choose a lawyer instead of a parent or friend in live proceedings. In a hearing, typically, there are the complainant (survivor), respondent (the accused), their legal counsel, a contracted retired judge and sometimes the Title IX coordinator. At all stages, an advisor and a support person are forced to choose between legal guidance and emotional support. This bill will be the first to mandate access to both.

“We’re ensuring that people are not just protected legally, but they’re protected from a mental health perspective as well, dealing with what often is the most traumatic moment in their entire life,” Mostafa said.