The University of Michigan has seen a drop in the number of sexual misconduct reports involving students, faculty and staff in 2019. UM’s Office for Institutional Equity (OIE) released two separate annual reports Monday, Nov. 11 – one for students and another it began issuing last year for faculty and staff, noting that recent fluctuations in volume correlate with awareness efforts surrounding the #MeToo movement.

The OIE received 178 reports of possible sexual misconduct by faculty and staff during the 2019 fiscal year, compared to 235 the previous year. Reports of student-prohibited conduct, on the other hand, decreased from 277 to 272, while reports of sexual assault decreased by about 15%, from 149 to 126. The report also noted that UM’s revised policies have resulted in a “higher than usual” number of people who have sought an alternative resolution, rather than a full investigative process with a live hearing. In each instance, the request was granted and UM’s Title IX Coordinator facilitated, with the complainant’s consent, an adaptable resolution – a voluntary, remedies-based resolution method that “balances support and accountability without formal disciplinary action against a respondent.” Under its interim policy, UM expanded the circumstances under which adaptable resolution is available to students.

UM revised the policy in October 2018, implementing an interim policy in light of a ruling from the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals against UM. The ruling mandated that public universities must give accused students an in-person hearing where they or their adviser can cross-examine the accuser and witnesses.

msn.com-M. Slagter

Share this:

Few universities have a more troubling record on Title IX matters than Yale. A few months after settling a lawsuit brought by former basketball captain Jack Montague—thereby avoiding trial on a variety of claims, including that the university manipulated its procedures to bring charges against Montague and then found him guilty despite a preponderance of the evidence suggesting otherwise—the university has released its sixteenth semi-annual report of sexual assault allegations among the Yale student body.

As always—if accepted at face value—the data in the report, penned by Stephanie Spangler, indicates an extraordinarily dangerous campus, with a much higher violent crime rate than any of the nation’s most dangerous cities. And, as always, the specifics within the Spangler Report suggest instead a campus motivated by a frenzy to report, with few cases even brought for adjudication in Yale’s notoriously one-sided adjudication system. Spangler explains that her document “uses a more expansive definition of sexual assault” than that offered in state or federal law. She has never provided an explanation as to why Yale has chosen to redefine a commonly-understood term, but the broader definition allows figures that create a greater sense of crisis.

At first blush, the chart suggests a campus awash in violent crime. A closer look, however, shows that formal adjudications of Title IX cases have actually decreased, by a fairly substantial percentage, since 2014. Spangler’s report offers no explanation for this trend, or what it might say about dubious claims being submitted to the Title IX office by accusers who have no intention of moving forward with their claims.

Yale is the only school to provide reports like Spangler’s (thanks to a resolution agreement with the Office for Civil Rights). Over the years, Spangler has removed more and more details from her reports—the documents, for instance, no longer detail third-party reports involving anonymous alleged victims and accused students. But a couple of items from the most recent report do stand out. Minding the Campus has broken down each of the previous Spangler documents.

mindingthecampus– KC Johnson

Share this: