This is a news release from the Department of Education.
My own institution, Wright State University, is not on the list, but a member of our executive committee observed: “It’s great that we’re not on it, but unfortunately this is still a problem on our campus. We also have no rape crisis center either on campus or even in the entire Miami Valley, which is inexcusable. Because of the kinds of courses I teach, students report many personal experiences to me that occur both on and near campus, and it’s incredibly depressing.”
Action on this issue is long overdue, but addressing it in meaningful ways is going to be a long-term and complex process requiring an extended commitment by the government and by our institutions. There are not going to be any quick fixes.
It does seem, however, that, despite the efforts of New York Senator Kirsten Gillebrand, there is now more willingness to tackle the issue of sexual violence on our campuses than in our military.
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The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released today a list of the higher education institutions under investigation for possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in all education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. In the past, Department officials confirmed individual Title IX investigations at institutions, but today’s list is the first comprehensive look at which campuses are under review by OCR for possible violations of the law’s requirements around sexual violence.
“We are making this list available in an effort to bring more transparency to our enforcement work and to foster better public awareness of civil rights,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon said. “We hope this increased transparency will spur community dialogue about this important issue. I also want to make it clear that a college or university’s appearance on this list and being the subject of a Title IX investigation in no way indicates at this stage that the college or university is violating or has violated the law.”
As with all OCR investigations, the primary goal of a Title IX investigation is to ensure that the campus is in compliance with federal law, which demands that students are not denied the ability to participate fully in educational and other opportunities due to sex.
The Department will not disclose any case-specific facts or details about the institutions under investigation. The list includes investigations opened because of complaints received by OCR and those initiated by OCR as compliance reviews. When an investigation concludes, the Department will disclose, upon request, whether OCR has entered into a resolution agreement to address compliance concerns at a particular campus or found insufficient evidence of a Title IX violation there.
The list of institutions under investigation for Title IX sexual violence issues will be updated regularly and made available to the public upon request by contacting OCR or to media by contacting the Press Office atpress@ed.gov.
Releasing this list advances a key goal of President Obama’s White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault to bring more transparency to the federal government’s enforcement activities around this issue. The Obama administration is committed to putting an end to sexual violence—particularly on college campuses. That’s why the President established the Task Force earlier this year with a mandate to strengthen federal enforcement efforts and provide schools with additional tools to combat sexual assault on their campuses.
As part of that work, the Education Department released updated guidance earlier this week describing the responsibilities of colleges, universities and schools receiving federal funds to address sexual violence and other forms of sex discrimination under Title IX. The guidelines provide greater clarity about the requirements of the law around sexual violence—as requested by institutions and students.
All colleges, and universities and K-12 schools receiving federal funds must comply with Title IX. Schools that violate the law and refuse to address the problems identified by OCR can lose federal funding or be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice for further action.
Under federal law, sexual violence refers to physical sexual acts perpetrated against a person’s will or where a person is incapable of giving consent — including rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, sexual abuse and sexual coercion.
OCR’s mission is to ensure equal access to education and promote educational excellence throughout the nation through the vigorous enforcement of civil rights. OCR is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination by educational institutions on the basis of disability, race, color, national origin, sex, and age, as well as the Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act of 2001. Additional information about the office is available at http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/index.html.
This list reflects investigations open as of May 1, 2014. Schools are listed alphabetically by state.
| State | Institution |
| AZ | Arizona State University |
| CA | Butte-Glen Community College District |
| CA | Occidental College |
| CA | University of California-Berkeley |
| CA | University of Southern California |
| CO | Regis University |
| CO | University of Colorado at Boulder |
| CO | University of Colorado at Denver |
| CO | University of Denver |
| CT | University of Connecticut |
| DC | Catholic University of America |
| FL | Florida State University |
| GA | Emory University |
| HI | University of Hawaii at Manoa |
| ID | University of Idaho |
| IL | Knox College |
| IL | University of Chicago |
| IN | Indiana University-Bloomington |
| IN | Vincennes University |
| MA | Amherst College |
| MA | Boston University |
| MA | Emerson College |
| MA | Harvard College |
| MA | Harvard University—Law School |
| MA | University of Massachusetts-Amherst |
| MD | Frostburg State University |
| MI | Michigan State University |
| MI | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor |
| NC | Guilford College |
| NC | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| ND | Minot State University |
| NH | Dartmouth College |
| NJ | Princeton University |
| NY | Cuny Hunter College |
| NY | Hobart and William Smith Colleges |
| NY | Sarah Lawrence College |
| NY | Suny at Binghamton |
| OH | Denison University |
| OH | Ohio State University |
| OH | Wittenberg University |
| OK | Oklahoma State University |
| PA | Carnegie Mellon University |
| PA | Franklin and Marshall College |
| PA | Pennsylvania State University |
| PA | Swarthmore College |
| PA | Temple University |
| TN | Vanderbilt University |
| TX | Southern Methodist University |
| TX | The University of Texas-Pan American |
| VA | College of William and Mary |
| VA | University of Virginia |
| WA | Washington State University |
| WI | University of Wisconsin-Whitewater |
| WV | Bethany College |
| WV | West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine |
See the previous posts to this blog on this issue:
“Sexual Assaults on Campus (mine):
https://academeblog.org/2013/05/16/sexual-assaults-on-campus/
“Rape Denial on Campus,” by John K. Wilson:
https://academeblog.org/2014/02/11/rape-denial-on-campus/
Just because a campus may not be listed doesn’t mean that its administration might not be in court or before the state’s human rights commission or another Federal agency (e.g. HHS, etc.) for discrimination. While faculty and staff are also covered by Title IX, they often forget this fact and/or use a different venue, the state’s affiliate with the EEOC, for example, to lodge complaints of sexual discrimination, harassment, retaliation.
DOED acts as a political organization and it conveniently “loses” complaint files, dismisses valid allegations or badgers complainants into withdrawals. Further, it has a poor track record in the matter of investigating retaliation allegations, leaving complainants exposed. In short, the list must be understood as a very limited “snapshot” of discrimination cases which DOED has cherry-picked for its docket.
This is a very astute comment. It provides a more formal framework for understanding the limitations to what the Department of Education has done than the observation made by my colleague on our executive committee, but it seems very consistent with that observation.
The Department of Education is not one of the cabinet-level departments in which I have the greatest faith. Even when their hearts seem to be in the right place, their policies seem wrong-headed–at times almost incredibly so. And as with all federal departments, it is generally very difficult to distinguish whether they are actually attempting to do the right thing or simply making a good show of trying to do the right thing.
Reblogged this on Ohio Higher Ed.