TITLE IX Professionals Warn Colleges To Be Wary of ‘Trauma-Informed’ Ideology
An organization that represents Title IX officials has a surprising recommendation for its members: Stop relying on unproven scientific claims. The Association of Title IX Administrators issued a position statement last month on “Trauma-Informed Training and the Neurobiology of Trauma,” warning that training for the field is going in an “unhealthy direction.” Many ATIXA members are involved in sexual-misconduct proceedings on college campuses, and their training materials may direct them to show bias in favor of accusers, the statement explains.
Brett Sokolow admitted that “due process was not a top ‘radar screen’” for ATIXA when the organization started in 2011, the same year the Obama administration released its “Dear Colleague” letter on campus sexual-misconduct investigations. ATIXA believed that due process was important but “we assumed members were getting solid due process training content elsewhere.”
While noting its statement could be “controversial,” ATIXA gives credit to journalist Emily Yoffe for sounding the alarm about trauma-informed training in The Atlantic two years ago. She said popular theories about the “neurobiology of trauma” were “junk science,” and while ATIXA doesn’t completely agree with Yoffe, “her points needed to be made.”…The Center for Prosecutor Integrity published a rebuttal written by two behavioral neuroscientists, Sujeeta Bhatt of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and Susan Brandon, formerly of Yale University’s psychology department.
“The impacts of trauma on memories and recall are widely variable,” the rebuttal reads: It is possible for trauma to cause vivid memories, no memories, distorted memories, or incorrect memories…we should avoid the use of information on the neurobiology of trauma also to substitute for showing empathy,” Brandon said. When neurobiology is used to explain inconsistencies and make “victims look more plausible,” she said, it creates another risk of bias: that investigators will expect “victims to exhibit certain symptoms and behaviors.”
thecollegefix-Lexi Lonasa
