Live-blog: Senate meets on Mandatory Reporting / Responsible Employee policy, course overlap

Several members from the Sexual Violence Support Caucus of the GTFF will be in attendance at today’s meeting. Please see our following letter regarding policies for responsible employees to be voted on this afternoon:

To the members of the UO Faculty Senate,

The Sexual Violence Support Caucus of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF; AFT-3544) would like to address the proposed policy regarding responsible employee obligations that will be put to a vote on May 11th, 2016.

We deeply appreciate the commitment by the UO Faculty Senate to provide needed resources and support to students who have experienced prohibited discrimination and harassment. We also appreciate the clear and concise language describing the obligations of graduate employees with regards to reporting prohibited discrimination in the proposed policy. We have confidence the proposed policy will greatly alleviate confusion about required reporting obligations, which has been expressed in the past by members of the GTFF and campus community regarding past practice and policy procedure. For example, the clarification that events such as Take Back the Night will be exempt from reporting obligations will relieve survivors from the fear that their story may be reported without their permission. Similarly, it will free responsible university employees to attend and support such events wholeheartedly, without feeling that civil disobedience is necessary to support survivors. This is a foundational shift in creating trust, which is the key to creating safe, empowering, and healing spaces for survivors. The ability for survivors to disclose their experiences to their peers and community both safely and on their own terms is a significant step in their healing process. We commend the proposed policy and believe it is part of the necessary process of creating spaces that empower those who were harmed.

In fact, such spaces are a model for our institutional policies: we think that survivors of trauma or prohibited discrimination should always have the agency to talk about their experiences without fear of retaliation or breach of confidentiality. This survivor-centered position is supported by leading research in the field of psychology, notably Dr. Jennifer Freyd’s institutional betrayal trauma theory and Dr. Judith Herman’s complex trauma theory. It is also supported by contemporary critical observation and experience. Displacing agency from survivors, as mandated by required reporting, often greatly exacerbates the original trauma; it can be traumatizing in-and-of-itself. Required reporting inflicts harm on students.

In light of this evidence, we are disappointed that the proposed policy implies that the institution will continue to demand university workers (graduate employees, faculty, and staff) to participate in the retraumatization of students by requiring the disclosure of a survivor’s experience to a third person without the survivor’s consent. We understand such reports remain confidential and are part of an attempt to bring visibility to this issue, combating past sweep-it-under-the-rug practices by introducing the potential for disciplinary workplace penalty upon failure to report. However, involuntary disclosure undermines confidentiality and trust in educators and the university as a whole. This is especially damaging to students of color and genderqueer students whose trust in historically white, heteronormative U.S. institutions is very low. Required reporting squanders rather than builds this trust. Rather than relying on required reporting, we advise the UO Faculty Senate to consider ways in which we might establish and build trust in our institution. This means enabling survivors to navigate their healing and justice process on their own terms. This is not a call to abandon survivors; it is a call to take this opportunity to structure our university in a way that will best support them.

Many graduate employees, faculty, and staff recognize the harm that is done by reporting someone’s experience of prohibited discrimination without consent. However, many also fear that not reporting will have negative consequences on their employment. This is especially problematic for international graduate employees whose future in this country depends on being engaged as a graduate employee. Forcing a graduate employee, faculty, or staff member to choose between retraumatizing a student and violating the terms of their employment places an undue burden upon the worker and the disclosing survivor. This burden is exacerbated by the regular friendships formed by graduate employees between undergraduates, other graduate employees, advisors and committee members, other faculty, and staff. We know of instances where the looming burden of required reporting produced hesitation in survivors reaching out and disclosing to friends; such barriers within relationships produces major impediments to a survivor’s healing process. Unfortunately, the policies currently proposed by the Faculty Senate do not address such intersections. If these policies are confirmed, we predict confusion, misinformation, and underground civil disobedience will continue to be widespread.

We acknowledge that maintaining a safe campus also means that perpetrators need to be brought to justice. Research demonstrates, however, that the current legal and university structures are inadequate to produce justice for survivors and the community. While more conversations and future actions will be required to achieve such goals, there is no sufficient evidence that required reporting is needed, let alone conducive, in this process. There is, however, substantial evidence demonstrating that required reporting harms the very people it is supposed to protect.

One pragmatic option would be to pass the “Exempt Employee Amendment,” which offers an exemption from required reporting obligations for employees certified in sexual violence advocacy and university procedure. Current required reporting mandates are predicated upon broad interpretations of a reasonability standard in federal policy: anyone whom a student might reasonably believe has authority within their institution must report. Current practice interprets this as any university employee with any kind of authority in a student’s life, but in many cases it is much more reasonable for a student to assume their university confidant will not report, especially not without consent (e.g., an instructor trained in sexual violence advocacy, a faculty teaching course content critical of contemporary legal practices regarding rape, a friend at work, etc.). In this climate, student disclosures are nothing short of a leap of faith with a Catch-22 awaiting them and their confidant on the other side: if a student trusts a university employee enough to disclose, the employee must either breach that trust (and the latest research) to file an involuntary report or the student and employee must agree to a pact of secret civil disobedience. This dynamic can be utterly burdensome, particularly for instructors teaching the latest critical research on trauma and sexual violence, which is where many student disclosures cluster. Relieving trained workers from required reporting will allow for a more healing pedagogical relationship; many workers already have such training and regularly employ it when students disclose, though under the above described duress. The exemption will also increase the diversity of confidential staff at the University of Oregon, benefiting our students of color and genderqueer students. Indeed, the Exempt Employee Amendment will ensure further accessibility to resources and support for vulnerable and traumatized students in our campus community.

For the reasons outlined above, the GTFF Sexual Violence Support Caucus urges the UO Faculty Senate to:

• Clarify that information received in private conversations is not “credible evidence” as defined in II.H of these policies;
• Pass the Exempt Employee Amendment, but with clarification that survivors may be de-identified in required confidential consultations so this amendment does not reproduce our above stated concerns;
• Ensure the availability of trainings for exempt employee certification at the University of Oregon;
• Hold the administration of the University of Oregon accountable for establishing a survivor-centered system based on trust rather than mandates or monied interests.

We recognize that university policies must comply with federal and state laws. However, these laws allow universities to interpret the ‘reasonability’ standard of students and the responsibilities of workers on their own. Rather than solidify the status quo, we should all use this opportunity to create a campus that is truly safe and empowering to everyone. We believe that anyone who has experienced discrimination, harassment, or violence should always have full agency over their experiences. We urge you to help us build a university reflective of this.

In solidarity,
The Sexual Violence Support Caucus of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (AFT-3544)