By Lindsay Cates
Rockbridge area colleges have been under pressure to keep up with changing federal regulations regarding sexual assaults on college campuses. And the recent spotlight on the University of Virginia does not mean it is an unusual campus, a local expert says.
Rolling Stone magazine published a story Nov. 19 about an alleged gang rape at U-Va. But the magazine subsequently said it could no longer vouch for the account of the young woman who said she was attacked.
But even with questions swirling about the validity of the Rolling Stone story and potential legal repercussions, Washington and Lee, Virginia Military Institute and Southern Virginia University continue to take a closer look at their own policies.
“There is an understanding among cadets and faculty that sexual assault, and all issues surrounding that, are really important,” said Col. Stewart MacInnis, Director of Communications and Marketing at Virginia Military Institute.
Hugh Bouchelle, Campus Safety Director and Title IX administrator at Southern Virginia University, said he has heard almost nothing about the Rolling Stone article from students and wasn’t familiar with the details of the article himself.
But Bouchelle said sexual misconduct cases at SVU, which is affiliated with The Church of the Latter-Day Saints, are not common. Still, he would like to see stronger training programs in place.
At Washington and Lee, students and administrators acted quickly to address issues raised by the original article, such as mistreatment of others.
“It is especially wrong in this community, where we—rightly—insist on developing within our students the moral obligation to treat others with respect at all times and under all conditions,” W&L President Ken Ruscio said in an email Dec. 1 to the campus community. “It is wrong anywhere. It is especially wrong at this university.”
In the email Ruscio condemned the mistreatment of others and challenged students to think deeply about W&L’s values. He also re-affirmed his trust in the university’s sexual misconduct policies.
The following day, W&L’s student government leaders emailed a statement to all students reiterating the relationship between sexual misconduct offenses and the school’s honor code.
Sexual misconduct cases are handled differently from honor violation proceedings. Cases involving sexual misconduct are heard by the Student Faculty Hearing Board (SFHB). And while the honor code has a single sanction—dismissal—the SFHB has a range of sanctions. However if a student is found guilty of initiating non-consensual sexual intercourse the sanction is dismissal.
“Only we, as students, can eradicate sexual misconduct from our community. It is inconsistent with the high standard we have set for ourselves. We are one community, and we will not tolerate any form of sexual misconduct,” the email said.
Nothing New
Sexual assault on college campuses made national headlines in recent months even before the Rolling Stone article was published.
“I think it’s just a convergence of things that are happening,” said Judy Casteele, executive director of Project Horizon. “Lots of people are saying sexual assault is at an all-time high or that sort of thing, but our statistics don’t show that. What we see instead is that there is more awareness, and more people are talking about it.”
W&L Title IX Coordinator Lauren Kozak agrees that the issue is nothing new. She attributes the news attention to the Obama administration which has made reducing campus sexual assaults a priority.
“The re-focusing and changing of some of the laws on how schools need to respond to misconduct, I think, also started a public discussion on the issue, and I think that’s continued,” Kozak said. “It’s just more light on an issue that’s been around for a while.
The Clery Act and Title IX
Kozak was hired this past summer to make sure W&L is complying with all federal guidelines for Title IX. Title IX is a law passed in 1972 that requires gender equity for boys and girls in every educational program that receives federal funding.
The requirements, as far as policy and training, come from guidance issued by the Department of Education. Kozak points to two main documents that focus on sexual violence: The April 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter and the subsequent Q and A clarifications.
In addition to the new Title IX guidance, changes to a federal law called The Clery Act were adopted this year to account for sexual misconduct offenses. The Clery Act now overlaps with Title IX in some ways and Kozak works with W&L Director of Public Safety Ethan Kipnes to put together the report.
Since 1990 colleges have been required to report crime and safety information to the federal government. Originally known as the Campus Security Act, The Clery Act applies to any college that receives federal funding.
“The purpose behind the Clery Act is really to create a standardized set of actual crime definitions which are based primarily on the uniform crime reporting definitions that the FBI uses for major types of crimes,” said Kipnes.
Schools must report the number of crimes that occur on or near campus in a wide range of categories. Beginning in 2013, statistics on sexual misconduct cases were added as part of the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act, and include sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.
The regulations for the Campus SaVE Act were published in October. In addition to providing statistics, schools must also outline in detail the policies they have in place to handle campus security and sexual misconduct cases.
Universities could lose a portion of their federal funding if they fail to follow the guidelines outlined in the Clery Act. Currently there are 86 schools under investigation by the federal government for alleged Title IX offenses.
“The Department of Education has the power to withhold federal funding from schools,” Kozak said. “It has never used that power. It’s a very strong weapon that it has, but it has never actually utilized it.”
Instead, if a complaint is filed, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights conducts a third party investigation into the incident.
VMI was under investigation for six years after a female cadet filed a “hostile environment” complaint. The school reached an agreement with the Office of Civil Rights in April 2014.
VMI’s 2014 Clery Report, defines a hostile environment as a type of sexual harassment that “interferes with limits or denies the ability of the individual to participate in or benefit from the Institute’s educational programs, services, opportunities, or activities.”
During and after the investigation, VMI implemented an array of programs and actions in response.
MacInnis said incoming first-year cadets go through an extensive orientation that addresses all issues involving sexual harassment and misconduct. In May, VMI held its first session of bystander training, which encourages students to intervene if they witness inappropriate behavior. And MacInnis said the university is continuing with Title IX training for faculty and staff.
“Despite reservation, we signed an agreement that requires reports and certain actions by VMI, many of which the Institute already has initiated,” said a statement from VMI. “We signed this agreement not because we feel the findings are representative of the VMI environment; but rather, because it is in the best interest of the Institute to cooperate with OCR and put an end to this six-year investigation.”
Kozak said these Voluntary Resolution Agreements—the way investigations generally come to an end—can be illustrative of what kind of issues the Department of Education cares about.
However, less than six months after that investigation concluded, another hostile environment accusation was made late this summer.
“We’ve responded to the Office of Civil Rights on that and we are now waiting for the OCR to complete their investigation,” MacInnis said. VMI’s Title IX Coordinator did not comment to the Rockbridge Report on either investigation.
SVU also faced a Title IX investigation this past summer. The Office of Civil Rights investigated whether SVU failed to respond to complaints of sexual harassment.
Title IX Administrator Bouchelle would not comment on specifics of the case, but said it was resolved in a voluntary resolution agreement.
Just a Statistic?
Administrators agree that the Clery Act is good because it holds schools accountable, but some are questioning whether the tedious reporting requirements are the best way to report Title IX cases.
“There is a difficulty with trying to make a template that fits every situation,” MacInnis said. “One statistic could include something as serious as what happened at U-Va. versus a misunderstanding between two people.”
W&L Public Safety Director Kipnes said there is inconsistency when comparing reports of different schools. Where you would expect larger universities to have substantially higher numbers, a lot of times they don’t. Kipnes warned against using the statistics to get a clear picture.
MacInnis shares that concern.
“Anytime you distill a human experience down to numbers, you lose a tremendous amount of emotional meaning to these specific situations,” MacInnis said. “A number is just a number and doesn’t reflect any of that.”
The Clery Act is complicated and administrators agree that there is some gray area in deciding what counts as “on-campus” or “adjacent to campus.”
Casteele said in her experience, she has seen campuses do the right thing and just want to follow the letter of the law.
Universities may be timid sometimes, she said, when it comes to “knowing which boxes to check” for a reported crime. That may be a contributing factor of the smaller statistics seen on the reports.
Casteele also said that because Lexington is a small community, administrators are really looking to address the problem of off-campus reporting. If the issue has anything to do with the students, Casteele said, she sees the schools more likely to stretch the boundaries in their reporting.
There have also been concerns raised about the reporting requirements actually deterring students coming forward.
Kozak feels that there shouldn’t be a problem because statistics can be included in the Clery without providing any information to identify that person. But both she and the Project Horizon staff agree that students are the only way to truly lessen assaults.
“Student groups are a really wonderful addition to campuses, the students are the ones who are most intimately familiar with what is really going on on the ground level at sorority and fraternity functions and at off-campus housing situations,” said Kate Corr, Campus Services Coordinator at Project Horizon. “Just having those students with that base of knowledge is really fantastic on campus.”
Changing Policy
In the wake of U-Va. and amid changing requirements, Kozak said it is now more important than ever to make sure the school is staying true to federal policy.
“One of the most shocking things about the Rolling Stone article is the fact that in U-Va.’s history it has never expelled anyone for sexual assault,” Kozak said. “I really don’t think there’s any possible explanation for that that makes any kind of sense—that they could never, ever have dismissed somebody.”
Kozak said U-VA’s policy is similar to W&L in that there is a single sanction for these types of cases. W&L has dismissed students for non-consensual sexual intercourse based on the single sanction guideline.
This year Washington and Lee adopted an interim policy on sexual assault, which went into effect in August. Kozak said changes needed to be made quickly in order to ensure compliance with the new Campus SaVE guidelines.
“It was really just something that was done at the time so that we can be very thoughtful in what we actually do for our full policy,” Kozak said.
W&L is working on getting a new policy approved so that it can be put into place next academic school year.
MacInnis said VMI recently revised its policy on sexual harassment and Title IX to make it easier for students and faculty to learn about how to report cases properly.
Bouchelle acknowledged that SVU’s current training programs are lacking. Bouchelle said they are working to expand training and education “to make students know how to report things and create a larger sense of awareness.”
“The administration wants to do the right thing and with the new requirements, we really need to get on our game,” Bouchelle said.
One benefit of being in Rockbridge County is that all three campuses have a working relationship with Project Horizon, a non-profit organization in Lexington that provides a range of free and confidential services to sexual assault victims.
Project Horizon is working with all three campuses on improving their training programs and response procedures.
Community Ties
Although the Rockbridge area is home to three universities, Casteele said not to forget to look beyond college campuses. According to Casteele, one in four women will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lifetime and one in six men, and that’s true for the general public as well.
“The college communities are just a small microcosm of what’s happening in the rest of the world. We have the sense that there’s rampant sexual assault on college campuses but nowhere else—that’s not true,” Casteele said. “It’s no different in the community than it is on the college campuses, they’re just more concentrated.”
Last fall Gov. Terry McAuliffe, created by executive order a task force on combatting campus sexual violence in Virginia. The group comprises three committees: response, law enforcement and prevention. Casteele is on the response committee.
All committees will report their findings to the governor in 2015 to see how Virginia can improve its response to campus sexual assault.
There is also new legislation being proposed on the state level in the wake of U-Va. that would require universities to report every incident that is reported to them to the police.
Here, Kozak said, is where she can see concerns being raised about student reporting. The fear is that students could be reluctant to report incidents, knowing that universities would have an obligation to let the police know their identity.
Kozak thinks the legislation will end up passing in some form, although the specific details have not been worked out yet.
“On a federal level and on a state level there’s a lot of attention being paid to sexual assault and prevention and response and it’s quite frankly about time,” said Casteele. “It’s long overdue.”
