President Schill, GCO & Senate cooperate on interim Responsible Employee Policy

President Schill has, with the endorsement of the Senate Responsible Reporting Work Group, implemented an emergency policy on mandatory reporting. The new temporary policy is here. The Senate’s work group is here.

President Schill has approved emergency policy V.11.02 and associated changes to UO’s grievance policy and discrimination policy relating to the prohibition of discrimination and the process for responding to reports of prohibited discrimination. These temporary changes will be in effect for 180 days and provide needed clarification of who is a “responsible employee” and therefore required to report prohibited discrimination, including sexual harassment.

In summary, the emergency policy:

  • Reinforces the expectation that all employees are required to communicate reports of prohibited discrimination, including sexual harassment and sexual violence, to:
    • The Title IX Coordinator;
    • The Office of Crisis Intervention and Sexual Violence Support Services; or
    • The Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity.
  • Clarifies that the following offices are “confidential resources” that can help connect students and employees with support services and help them navigate their options, without being required to report the alleged misconduct:
    • The Office of Crisis Intervention and Sexual Violence Support Services;
    • The University Health Center;
    • Ombudsperson; and
    • The University Counseling Center.
  • Provides clarification regarding when a report made in a privileged context does not trigger a duty to report, including:
    • Reports made to an attorney in the context of providing legal counsel (such as student legal services);
    • Reports made by unit members to a steward of their union;
    • Information shared in a public awareness event (such as “Take Back the Night”);
    • Information received during an IRB approved research project; and
    • Reports made by students in the context of an academic assignment.
    • Provides a pathway for certain faculty or staff to receive training and authorization from the Title IX Coordinator to be exempt from the reporting requirement.

This emergency policy reflects the input of the University Senate’s Committee on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, and incorporates many thoughtful suggestions made by stakeholders in three separate meetings of the senate as it debated, but was unable to enact a permanent policy this past spring.

President Schill and I have asked the senate to return to the task and make modifications that reflect sound policy and remain compliant with our legal obligations under Title IX. To that end, University Senate leadership have appointed a working group, led by Knight Professor of Law, Merle Weiner, to seek broader consensus on a legally sufficient policy.

It is my hope that the senate can run an open and transparent process, one that relies on subject-matter experts and finds a careful balance between supporting a student’s control of whether to initiate a formal response to an incident of sexual harassment or prohibited discrimination and the university’s need to receive information necessary to stop and prevent discrimination. If the senate once again is unable to pass a policy, or if the policy it crafts does not meet minimum legal requirements, the president will be prepared to act at the end of the 180-day life of this emergency policy.

Sincerely,

Kevin Reed
Vice President and General Counsel

Affirmative Action finally tells students where they can report sexual harassment

7/13/2016 update: Reporter Max Thornberry has the report in the Daily Emerald here. A snippet:

Concerns about the timeliness and effectiveness of the AAEO office [aren’t] new. A 2014 report from the ombuds office found that, “classified staff report high levels of distrust…in the fairness, competence and responsiveness of the University’s AA/EO function.”

The ombuds office did not investigate the office itself and only makes notes of patterns of perception, according to the report. Former ombudsman Bruce McAllister did note however that, “perception does not necessarily equate to fact, but patterns are important to the acceptance and long-term efficacy of any particular program.”

Until site reconstruction this week, there was no mention at all of the ombuds office, an integral piece in the murky mandatory reporting debate on college campuses. The ombuds office is one of the few truly confidential outlets for survivors of sexual assault, which is a key part of the debate surrounding mandatory reporting.

6/29/2016 update: Penny Daugherty’s AAEO website finally has been updated with a link to the correct administrator for reporting child abuse. But the link for reporting discrimination and sexual harassment still takes you to a pdf (below) that is years out of date and does not mention the new Title IX Coordinator, Office of Crisis Intervention, etc. Other AAEO pages and links also still describe procedures that are years out of date, and policies that are no longer in effect.

That’s right, the UO office that is responsible for complying with federal laws on discrimination and harassment can’t even point UO students, faculty, and staff to the current UO procedures and policies for complying with those laws. Does anyone except Johnson Hall still have confidence in AAEO Director Penny Daugherty?

6/23/2016 update: Four weeks after I emailed her about it Affirmative Action Director Penny Daugherty’s website still has incorrect info about reporting sexual assault and harassment. Need to report child abuse? Her office will refer you to someone who no longer works at UO.

5/26/2016: AAEO website rife with errors & outdated info for reporting sexual abuse, harassment, assaults

At this point no one should be surprised by the continued incompetence of AAEO Director Penny Daugherty. President Schill’s emergency policy requiring mandatory reporting has been in effect since February 18th. Full policy here. The gist:

Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 11.40.05 AM

The UO Senate’s SGBV committee has worked for 6 months to develop a permanent version of this policy. The Senate has had three very public debates on the question of mandatory reporting to Ms Daugherty’s  office. It’s been all over the papers. And yet Ms Daugherty’s AAEO website still manages to get the basics all wrong:

 Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 11.52.10 AM

Ms Daugherty’s AAEO office says:

Consistent with its commitment to provide a safe environment for students, faculty and staff, University policy requires that employees who have credible evidence that prohibited discrimination is occurring have a duty to report that information to their supervisor or to the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity.

That’s not true.  Since February, UO policy has said that students should go to the Title IX coordinator or the Office of Crisis Intervention, and not to Ms Daugherty.  Why was this job taken away from her? I don’t know. There have been two external reviews of AAEO in the past year, but UO’s General Counsel will not make them public.

AAEO’s website also says:

Confidentiality for all parties is respected to the extent possible.

That’s deceptive. AAEO’s ability to respect confidentiality is quite limited, and in fact AAEO’s responsibility is to protect the university, not the victims. Here’s the language from the proposed new policy, which was approved by the General Counsel’s office:

Employees should be aware that AAEO is tasked with ensuring compliance with this policy and state and federal law. Therefore, while AAEO will work with employees, students and campus community members to ensure that they understand their complaint options, are protected from retaliation and are provided with interim measures as appropriate, AAEO employees are not advocates for individuals participating in the process.

The UO Ombuds Office is one place that can really guarantee confidentiality. AAEO doesn’t even mention them. And if you follow the prominent links on the AAEO website, the incorrect information just gets worse:

For more information regarding university employee required reporting obligations, including those related to the reporting of child abuse and crimes under the Clery Campus Security Act, please see Summary of Required UO Employee Reporting Responsibilities.

Really. That link starts with this:

Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 11.59.55 AM

That information is obsolete, wrong, and dangerous. The document is from January 2014, two years before the current emergency policy was put in place. It’s incorrect about where to report sexual harassment directed at students. Do you need to report child abuse? Our Office of AAEO will send you to the email address of someone who no longer works at UO.

OK, maybe the prominent link on the AAEO homepage to this glossy brochure will lead to better information? No, that brochure is also years out of date. As in five:

Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 12.10.11 PM

OK, try AAEO’s tab for Sexual Harassment and Assault. This will take you to a different version of the AAEO brochure, with different information. Different, but also wrong. As one example, AAEO says that if you have a “facilitated conversation” with them, “the participants retain control over the outcome”:

Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 5.03.55 PM

No they don’t. AAEO employees are mandatory reporters. So suppose two faculty come to AAEO for a facilitated conversation to talk about some issues in their department. During the conversation, the AAEO facilitator decides that these issues include credible evidence of sexual harassment. Under current UO policy the facilitator would be obligated to report, and perhaps initiate a formal grievance process. This process could easily lead to the alleged harasser learning the identity of the people who had come to AAEO, to have what they had thought would be a conversation in which they could “retain control over the outcome.”

This isn’t just my interpretation, it’s the interpretation of one of AAEO’s own facilitators, who agreed that in this sort of situation it would be better to go to the Ombuds office. So why won’t AAEO say that publicly? I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. It’s just incompetence. Many long years of it.

Prof. Freyd posts resource page on opposition to mandatory reporting policies

Check her website here for updates, page down for the current links. Among many other resources she provides a link to the recently updated University of Michigan policy, which explicitly excludes faculty from the list of “Responsible Employees”, thereby allowing them to talk to students and employees about sexual and racial harassment without being required to report the details to the university administration. The executive summary of the UM policy explains:

The development of the policy was a comprehensive and collaborative effort that included a rigorous and iterative drafting process with broad input from students, faculty and staff across the university, including those who work in this area. It also includes guidance from national experts outside the university and at other universities.

The policy balances important principles of autonomy and agency for the claimant; 1 due process rights and considerations; and the university’s responsibility to maintain a safe, nondiscriminatory environment free from sexual and gender-based harassment and other forms of interpersonal violence.

During the UO Senate debates we were told the OCR was opposed to exempting faculty from mandatory faculty. But the UM document notes that their policy was was shared with the DoE OCR before being finalized:

APPENDIX A – POLICY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS A proposed draft policy, titled The University of Michigan Policy on Student Sexual Misconduct Including Intimate Partner Violence and Stalking in the Context of Intimate Relationships (the Draft Policy), was shared with all students, faculty, and staff Oct. 1, 2015, with an invitation to review the policy and provide feedback by Nov. 6, 2015. The university received feedback from more than 325 individuals. The draft policy was also shared with OCR in October 2015.

The relevant language from the new UM policy is here:

C. REPORTING BY UNIVERSITY EMPLOYEES

1. Responsible Employees and Other Individuals

Responsible Employees must immediately report any information they know about
suspected Prohibited Conduct to the Office for Institutional Equity or the Title IX
Coordinator. Responsible Employees may include non-employees in addition to
employees. Failure by a Responsible Employee to timely report a suspected Prohibited
Conduct may subject them to appropriate discipline, up to and including removal from
their position. Responsible Employees may report to the Title IX Coordinator through
any of the reporting options previously noted in Section VI(B).

The following individuals are Responsible Employees and Other Individuals:

• Regents;
• Executive officers (including those serving in the role of Associate or
Assistant Vice President/Provost, as designated by the executive officer);
• Deans, directors, department heads/chairs (including those serving in
assistant or associate roles);
• Graduate and undergraduate chairs;
• Supervisors who have hiring or firing power over at least three employees
who are not student or post-doc employees;
• Any individuals, whether employees or not, who serve as advisors to or
coaches of University-recognized student group

Faculty and staff who do not meet any of these criteria are not considered Responsible Employees and Other Individuals. Individuals who are Confidential Resources are not Responsible Employees. Any questions regarding who is a Responsible Employee should be directed to the Office of the General Counsel at (734)764-0304 or the Office for Institutional Equity at (734)763-0235 2.

2. All Other Employees

Reporting is an important tool to address Prohibited Conduct. Thus, while all other employees who are not designated as Confidential Resources should safeguard an individual’s privacy, they are also strongly encouraged to share any information about such conduct with the Office for Institutional Equity, the Title IX Coordinator, or a member of the Dean of Students Office.

Freyd website as of 5/22/2016:

Ethical and Practical Problems with Required Reporting of Sexual Violence on College Campuses

A Compilation of Articles and Resources

Compiled by Jennifer J Freyd

Disclosure: I have an opinion on this issue — I’m opposed to so-called required reporting on ethical grounds: I consider it a violation of basic human rights to privacy and autonomy; I believe removing autonomy is harmful to survivors based on what we know from social science research; and I believe the policy is fundamentally counter to academic freedom, learning, and equal access to education (and is thus a civil rights violation). I’m also opposed on practical grounds: I believe required reporting will chill reporting on campus and, in the meantime, there are good approaches available to encouraging voluntary — and instiutionally accountable — reporting.

This Site is Under Construction

News Articles:

Professors Are Being Forced To Reveal Sexual Assault Confidences, Like It Or Not by Tyler Kingkade, The Huffington Post, 10 May 2016.

Endangering a Trust by Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed, 4 February 2015

Faculty Commentary Opposing Required Reporting:

The Problem with “Required Reporting” Rules for Sexual Violence on Campus by Jennifer Freyd, Huffington Post Blog, 25 April 2016.

Ohio University faculty members want mandatory reporter rule reevaluated by Miriam Shadis and Patricia Stokes (and many signers), The Post, 22 October 2015

The Chilling Effect of Mandatory Reporting of Sexual Assault by Michele Moody-Adams, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 11 March 2015

Trust me…no never mind by Denice Labertew, California Coalition Against Sexual Assault Blog, 5 February 2015

Student and Survivor Voices Opposing Required Reporting:

Anonymous Open Letter to the UO Senate from a Graduate Student blog post 26 April 2016

Survivor Survey on Mandatory Reporting by End Sexual Violence

Statement regarding UO Responsible Employee Duty to report sexual harassment and sexual assault policy by UO Organization Against Sexual Assault

Some Universities with Policies that Do NOT Require All Faculty to be Required Reporters

  1. University of Michigan
  2. NYU
  3. Cal Tech
  4. CUNY
  5. Hofstra
  6. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

(More details about specific policies here.)

Scholarly and Scientific Research Relevant to Required Reporting

See this compendium

See Also

Senate meeting Wed 5/18 on Mandatory Reporting

Live-blogging will be light.

Watch Live

Senate Meeting Agenda – May 18, 2016

3:30 pm    Introductory Remarks, Senate President Randy Sullivan

3:30 pm    1.   Call to Order

3:30 pm    2.   Approval of Minutes 2.1      May 11, 2016

3:32 pm    4.   New Business

3:32 pm            4.2     US15/16/-25: Scheduling of Examinations Policy; Undergraduate Council and Senate Executive Council. Passes unanimously

3:37 pm            4.3     US15/16-24: Major/Minor/Certificate/Program Course Overlap Policy; Undergraduate Council. Passes unanimously

3:42pm             4.4     US15/16-23: Responsible Employee Policy; Committee on Sexual & Gender-Based Violence

The Senate blog has many statements and comments, here.

3:50: Clarifying amendments pass unanimously. The Senate is now working on the version here.

Koopman (Philosophy): Introduces a sunset clause for 12/15/2016, arguing that the policy is important, affects many campus groups, and many different kinds of interactions, and that the Senate needs to ensure that all stakeholders are involved and all issues considered.

Sunset clause passes 27-10. Discussion of main motion resumes.

Koopman lays out the issues:

Screen Shot 2016-05-18 at 5.19.40 PM

He then proceeds to use this to show that mandatory reporting does not need to be universal, and shows the internal contradictions of the proposed policy.

5:30: The policy fails, 15 to 16.

4:50 pm            4.4     US15/16-26: Approval of Curriculum Report, Spring Term 2016; Frances White (Anthropology), Chair, Committee on Courses. Passes unanimously.

4:55 pm            4.5     US14/15-40: To Promote Representative Attendance at Senate Meetings; Senate Executive Committee. Held over.

5:00 pm    5.   Open Discussion

5:00 pm    6.   Reports 6.1      “Academic Continuity,” Academic Integrity Taskforce. Held over.

5:15 pm    7.   Notice(s) of Motion

5:15 pm    8.   Other Business

5:30 pm    9.   Adjournment

Today at 3:30 in 156 Straub: emergency Senate meeting on Mandatory Reporting

The Senate webpage with the policy proposal and amendments is here. The Senate blog is here – many interesting comments.

Some History of the Responsible Employee policy, from the GCO:

Prior to February 2016, UO Policy, set forth in Oregon Administrative Rule 571.003 governing Grievances, required all UO employees to report instances of unlawful discrimination to the Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Office or their supervisor.  University-provided sexual harassment training, as well as annual announcements from the University President reiterated that all University employees are required to report to the appropriate office any information received that established a potential sexual harassment or other instance of prohibited discrimination.  Under those long-standing policies, reports of any type of unlawful discrimination, including sexual harassment, were to be made to AAEO or the employee’s supervisor, regardless who the alleged victim of the discrimination was.  That pre-existing policy did not adequately clarify which offices on campus qualified as “confidential resources” where student survivors of sexual harassment could turn to make reports in a manner that promised the reporter confidentiality.

At the same time, the 571.003 grievance policy, in a separate section, purported to give any officer of the university who was called upon to participate in the informal resolution of a complaint of prohibited discrimination the authority to maintain confidentiality of reports of sexual misconduct or prohibited discrimination, unless that university officer independently determined that the report posed a health or safety threat to the individual.  This confusion, combined with new guidance from the White House and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, and an understanding that reports of sexual misconduct in which students are the victims should be reported to university officials with the ability to respond swiftly and appropriately to the needs of those victims, fueled an understanding by the University Senate’s Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support that the University needed to revisit and clarify policies regarding reporting of information of sexual misconduct.  The Task force determined:

“We understand that the current required (mandatory) reporting policy is based on UO Legal Counsel’s interpretation of OAR 003 0025, Subsection 2A. Reporting of sexual violence is essential to understanding the problems on our campus, making decisions about how to allocate resources, and complying with legal obligations. However, we agree with the White House’s “Not Alone” report that clearly identifying confidential personnel on campus and communicating effectively and straightforwardly with faculty and students about what required (mandatory) reporting means, why it is important, and how reporting works is vital to our efforts.  One first responder at UO suggested that there should be “greater access to confidential resources and a greater latitude to disclose only what a survivor wishes to disclose in a formal report,” a desire that reflects the White House’s recommendation about the need for degrees of confidentiality. As “Not Alone” puts it, individuals who work or volunteer in on-campus sexual assault centers, victim advocacy offices, women’s centers, or health centers, including front desk staff and students who provide assistance to students who experience sexual violence, should provide aggregate data, but should not be required to report, without the student’s consent, incidents of sexual assault to the school in a way that identifies the student. Other universities are taking different approaches to required (mandatory) reporting, approaches more in keeping with White House recommendations.  In order to comply with new federal regulations and White House Recommendations for best practices, the Senate will immediately review the outdated OAR.

In February 2016, anticipating the creation of a policy clarifying employee reporting obligations and specifying the campus’ confidential resources for survivors of sexual misconduct, the University President issued an emergency policy, revising OAR 571.003, making clear that university employees, other than those specifically designated as “confidential,” are expected to report to the AAEO any instance of unlawful discrimination and to report to either the Title IX Coordinator or the Office of Sexual Violence Support Services any information received concerning sexual harassment in which a university student is the alleged victim.  The policy revision attempted to demonstrate clearly which campus resources (victim’s advocates, ombuds, student survivor legal services, health and counseling centers) remained confidential resources available to survivors.

The Committee on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence thereafter took up the task of drafting a permanent policy responsive to the Task Force’s recommendation, seeking to clarify which resources on the UO campus would remain “confidential” and responding to guidance from the Office for Civil Rights and the White House requiring that universities designate which employees were perceived to be in a position to respond to reports of sexual misconduct, such that notice to those employees would be deemed notice to the university of the misconduct.  In drafting the policy, the CSGBV received input from students, faculty members and employees. The CSGBV also considered guidance issued by the Office For Civil Rights in 2014, which states that a: “responsible employee includes any employee: who has the authority to take action to redress sexual violence; who has been given the duty of reporting incidents of sexual violence or any other misconduct by students to the Title IX coordinator or other appropriate school designee; or whom a student could reasonably believe has this authority or duty.”

The result of the CSGBV is the Responsible Employee policy currently under consideration.

5/18/2016: 

John Bonine (Law) makes the case for voting against the mandatory reporting policy:

Dear colleagues,

I am out of the country, so cannot participate in the Senate meeting.  If I were present, I would have to vote to delay any permanent policy until survivors, students, and other stakeholders could be consulted and participate. Lacking a formal delay, I would have to vote “no,” which would send it back for broader discussions.

 I share some thoughts on why. 

1. First, contrary to some statements, the CSGBV committee did not unanimously support the proposed policy in front of us (mandatory disclosure of private sexual assault information to the administration). I and at least one other member strongly objected in various emails. Only 6 out of about 12 or 15 members voted “yes” during the sudden, 6-hour window. I was overseas and did not see the email voting until the period had closed. But my position was clear and I would have preferred that the committee would not have been represented as “unanimous.”

2. There is not just one legal view of whether involuntary  reporting of student trauma to administration authorities is legally required.  I have carefully analyzed the law and federal guidance and come to the opposite conclusion, as have several legal experts at the national level. 

3. Even if Title IX did require involuntary reporting to authorities of student sexual trauma, against a victim’s wishes, that would not make all the other elements of the policy legally required. Indeed, the constantly shifting amendments reveal that this is an area for debate and rational discussion and policy-making.

4. In my view, the Senate has a crucial role to play at UO – to reflect the views of constituencies and to apply our own analytical rigor – not to approve something just because some committee members did.  Indeed, the latest amendments do not have the imprimatur of the committee. If we do not understand each element of this dramatic policy, we should formally delay or vote no.

5. There has been no discussion with the very adult students whose autonomy will be violated. No town halls. No debates in dorms. We are a better university than one that treats these future leaders as children, whose privacy we should invade without discussion.

6. Something that concerns me deeply is that perpetrators, upon being notified by the university that they are suspected, are now hiring lawyers and investigators who then contact parents, grandparents, and friends with both questions and insinuations about a victim’s sexual history, sexual orientation, use of alcohol, attendance at wild parties, and other personal things. Reporting without permission enables that. A survivor of sexual assault should be able to weigh risks and make decisions, rather than having persons s/he doesn’t even know make those choices for her/him. (I respect some who would make those decisions, but who might make them next year or the year after?) I would leave such a decision, fraught with risks, in the hands of the already victimized.

7. Whatever the Senate does, the administration may adopt the policy regardless. But that is not a reason to vote yes. 

If a person votes yes, that constitutes their formal commitment to take away the autonomy of a student who might later come to them. They cannot later say that they were required to do so by policy. They must look a victim of assault, and indeed other students, in the eye and say that they personally voted to take away that autonomy, with whatever additional trauma that action may cause. The Senate simply does not have to do this – and I am unaware of any other university senate in this country that has done so.

Given all these concerns about both process and substance, as an independent-thinking Senator I would have to vote no on the present policy. 

Best regards,

John

John E. Bonine

B.B. Kliks Professor of Law

5/17/2016: The meeting will first deal with two uncontroversial policies on exam timing and course overlap. Then we will deal with Mandatory Reporting or, if you prefer, Responsible Employees. This post will be updated erratically below.

The Senate webpage with the policy proposal and amendments is here. The Senate blog is here – many interesting comments. The current policy is here. It is admirably transparent:

(8) Reporting Requirements: The Director and Title IX Coordinator, as appropriate, shall: (a) On at least an annual basis, issue a statistical report to the President, the University of Oregon News Bureau, and the Oregon Daily Emerald of the number and kinds of discrimination and sexual harassment complaints received and how they were resolved. No names of individual’s involved or other identifying information may be released in this report. Data relating to allegations of sexual harassment shall be reported separately from other forms of prohibited discrimination. Further break-downs by category may be used if confidentiality can be preserved and if doing so will make the figures more meaningful to the public;

I asked GC Kevin Reed for these reports. He says that he is unaware of any such reports and that it is fully possible that there are none. Another of the many failures of UO’s AAEO office under Director Penny Daugherty. There have been two separate reviews of the AAEO office in the past year, but these are confidential and the GCO will not disclose them.

The policy has been revised many times in the past few years. The 2012 version is here. It requires reporting, but allows for anonymity of sorts for the reporter and apparently also the victim, and it allows for a faculty member to act as an intermediary between the victim and the University Administration:

(2) University Employees’ Responsibilities in Dealing with Allegations of Prohibited Discrimination or Sexual Harassment: The University has the responsibility to prevent prohibited discrimination from occurring in its work-places and its academic, research, public, and student service programs:

(a) University employees with credible evidence that any form of prohibited discrimination is occurring have the responsibility to inform their supervisors or the Office of Affirmative Action. Credible evidence is evidence of the kind that prudent people would rely on in making important personal or business decisions;

(b) Staff in the Office of Affirmative Action shall provide information about available complaint processes, services for complainants, and assistance with resolving complaints to any University employee who makes a report of alleged discriminatory behavior so that these employees may pass on this advice to those involved who may need this information;

(c) In making such reports, University employees may retain their anonymity;

(d) Staff in the Office of Affirmative Action will advise potential complainants of the options available to them, including applicable internal formal and informal complaint and resolution processes, as well as the possibility of filing with an external agency. Potential complainants shall receive the addresses and phone numbers of external governmental agencies with authority to deal with their complaints, as well as information about any time limitations on access to outside agencies’ processes.

(3) Discrimination Grievance Counselor: As required by OAR 580-015-0090, the University has appointed a discrimination grievance counselor who is the Director of the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity (hereinafter referred to in this rule as the Director). The Director shall assist students and others in formulating and following up complaints of alleged discrimination.

(4) Formal Complaint Processes:

(a) All members of the University community considering filing a formal complaint alleging prohibited discrimination or sexual harassment are encouraged to contact the Office of Affirmative Action for information and advice. Potential complainants may remain anonymous. Affirmative Action staff will work for resolution through informal processes if that is what the complainant desires, or will assist in making a formal complaint and setting it into the formal complaint process applicable to the complainant; …

FWIW, former UO Pres Mike Gottfredson’s “Independent” Presidential Review Commission came out against the sort of broad-based mandatory reporting in this new proposed policy.

 

 

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

The focus of the meeting was the new “Responsible Reporting Policy”. There was lots of interesting debate, some amendments, and a decision to hold an additional Senate meeting next Wednesday the 18th to continue working on this policy.

DRAFT  Senate Meeting Agenda – May 11, 2016

2015-2016AgendasWatch LiveUniversity Senate Blog

Browsing Room, Knight Library; 3:00-5:00 pm

3:00 pm    Introductory Remarks, Senate President Randy Sullivan

3:00 pm    1.   Call to Order

3:00 pm    2.   Approval of Minutes  2.1      April 20, 2016

3:02 pm    4.   New Business

3:02 pm            4.1      US15/16-29: Repeal of Obsolete OUS Academic Policies; The Senate Curriculum Matters Policy Working Group and the Senate Executive Committee

Discussed at the last meeting, passes unanimously.

3:07 pm            4.2      US15/16-27: Revision of Academic Classification and Rank policy; Senate Employment Matters Work Group and Senate Executive Committee

Dreiling: Asked Triplett that the policy include links to the TRP and emeritus policies. Sullivan: It will.

Passes unanimously.

3:12 pm            4.3      US15/16-28: Revision of Sabbatical Leave policy; Senate Employment Matters Work Group and Senate Executive Committee

Passes unanimously.

3:15 pm            4.4      US15/16-23: Responsible Employee Policy; Committee on Sexual & Gender-Based Violence

Some links and background:

The proposed new policy is here. It repeals parts of old policies.

“2.1 THEREFORE, the University Senate approves of the attached Policy on UO Responsible Employee Duty to Report Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault.  This policy repeals university policies 580-15-005 through 580-15-010 and 571-03-L(1) through L(4).”

There’s no link to these, and if you google Chuck Triplett’s policy page you get “Your search – 580-15-005 site:policies.uoregon.edu – did not match any documents.” So I asked Triplett for them, and he sent me these files:

Redlined: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/971644/uomatters/sexassault/UO%20Policy%20571%20003%20Temp%20Redline%20Section%20L.pdf

Clean: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/971644/uomatters/sexassault/UO%20Policy%20571%20003%20Temp%20Clean%20Section%20L.pdf

Sorry, I’m listening not blogging.

After a thorough debate and several amendments, at 4:52

3:45 pm            4.5      US15/16/-25: Scheduling of Examinations Policy; Undergraduate Council and Senate Executive Council

4:00 pm            4.6      US15/16-24: Major/Minor/Certificate/Program Course Overlap Policy; Undergraduate Council

4:20 pm    5.   Open Discussion

4:20 pm    6.   Reports

6.1      “Academic Continuity,” Academic Integrity Taskforce

4:45 pm    7.   Notice(s) of Motion

4:45 pm    8.   Other Business

8.1      Executive Session – Affirm Award recipients for 4 senate awards

5:00 pm    9.   Adjournment

Mandatory reporting would be stricter for faculty than student victims

My previous post supporting the policy is here. I’ve also posted the comment below on the Senate blog (which requires a UO ID for login) here. The comment:

I thank Carol and the GSBV for their work on this policy. I think the balance between allowing faculty to confidentially advise their students, while making sure that perpetrators are reported and appropriately dealt with is difficult and uncertain. Given that, and my confidence in the committee’s judgement, I think the proposed requirement that all faculty should be mandatory reporters should be taken seriously

With that in mind I discussed the proposal with other faculty, and out of those discussions I started wondering about how it would apply to faculty who might give advice to colleagues who were being subject to sexual harassment by other faculty. I asked GC Kevin Reed about a generic example, and I’ve put that and his response below.

The gist is that this proposed policy treats faculty victims very differently than students. While students have a variety of confidential reporting options, the policy would require faculty to report the details of such harassment of faculty to Penny Daugherty’s AAEO office, regardless of whether or not the Ombuds office or other confidential resources had been consulted. I think this would prevent many helpful conversations between faculty colleagues. On the other hand it might inhibit serial perpetrators.

I’m not sure yet how this changes my opinion on the policy as a whole. I hope people will read the exchange below and use it to inform their own views.

Question to GC Kevin Reed:

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Let’s blame it on Gottfredson

The UO Board paid him $940K to leave, so let’s get our money’s worth.

The UO Senate spent a fair amount amount of time at its 4/20/2016 meeting discussing the proposed Responsible Reporting Policy for sexual assaults and sexual and racial harassment, brought to the Senate by its Committee on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, chaired by Carol Stabile (Journalism). The committee minutes show that this proposal was thoroughly discussed, and carefully crafted.

This is the policy formerly known as Mandatory Reporting. The proposal is here. The gist is that faculty and most other UO employees must tell the UO administration whenever a student tells them about sexual and racial harassment and sexual violence:

Responsible Employees [i.e. faculty, OAs, staff and some others, with exceptions for crisis counselors etc.] who receive Credible Evidence of Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment or Sexual Harassment are required to promptly report that information as follows:

A. If the Credible Evidence relates to Sex Discrimination [which includes sexual assault] of a Student, Responsible Employees should report any information received to the Title IX Coordinator or to the Office of Crisis Intervention and Sexual Violence Support Services. …

The Senate’s involvement came out of one of the many failures of Mike Gottfredson’s administration that were revealed after sports reporters foiled his administration’s attempts to keep the basketball rape allegations quite. Gottfredson had sent the university community a letter announcing that we were all mandatory reporters, and that AAEO had set up a silly web-based training on what this meant. But Gottfredson and his leadership team failed to follow through with an actual university policy – 4 years after the DoE’s Office of Civil Rights recommended one to VPFA Robin Holmes’s office.

The Senate stepped into the gap and put the Committee on GSBV on the job, with input from new GC Kevin Reed and some other new Schill hires. This policy is the result. Not everyone agrees with the idea that the definition of mandatory reporters should be this broad. (See below for Jennifer Freyd’s arguments against.) On the one hand students might be reluctant to talk to faculty if they know their names and the details will be reported to the administration and the perpetrator might learn that they’d talked, if their report results in action. On the other hand the policy cuts our famously incompetent AAEO director Penny Daugherty out of sexual assault matters, and mandatory reporting gives Schill’s new Title IX Coordinator specific information about serial perpetrators. Knowing this might make students more likely to report. I’m sure there are other arguments on both sides as well.

I’m no expert on this, but given all the uncertainty I think the CGSBV proposal falls well within the 95% confidence interval around the optimal policy, whatever that is, and it is certainly an improvement over the current Gottfredson non-policy policy.

But dissent and diversity of thought generally make things better, and as the video of Stabile’s presentation and the ensuing productive discussion shows, the UO Senate is the place for both. (Or, if you’re the administrator in the lower right corner, a good place to catch up on your sleep.)

The policy will likely have some revisions after this meeting, and come back for a vote at the May 5 meeting, or early this fall. Video of the Senate discussion here:

4/25/2015: Prof. Jennifer Freyd objects to mandatory reporting rules for sexual assaults. 

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