WUNRN
US Department of Education
Full Article: http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/harvard-law-school-found-violation-title-ix-agrees-remedy-sexual-harassment-incl
December
30, 2014 - The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced today that it has
entered into a resolution agreement with Harvard University and its Law School
after finding the Law School in violation of Title IX of the Education
Amendments of 1972 for its response to sexual harassment, including sexual
assault.
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http://news.yahoo.com/harvard-law-title-ix-violations-other-colleges-notice-190609475.html
After a four-year
investigation, the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights ruled
that Harvard Law School violated Title IX in how it handled sexual violence and
harassment complaints.
By
Stacy Teicher Khadaroo - December 31, 2014
Harvard Law School violated Title IX in
how it handled sexual violence and harassment complaints, the Department of
Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has ruled after a four-year
investigation.
The detailed
resolution agreement entered into by the Law School and Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.,
will be read closely and could influence policies at other schools.
“It’s a terrific
ruling…. When Harvard gets in trouble, people pay attention. Change does
trickle down,” says Wendy Murphy, an adjunct professor at New
England School of Law who filed the complaint against Harvard Law in 2010.
It was the first
such complaint ever filed against the law school, Professor Murphy says, and
she had pressed it to change its policies earlier that year when the school
hired her as a consultant.
In some past
rulings, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has tended
to be gentler with schools, saying it did not find a violation but the school
agreed to certain improvements – which can send confusing signals, Murphy says.
In this case, OCR clearly states that the “previous and current sexual
harassment policies and procedures used by the Law School do not, as written
and as applied in the two sexual assault cases examined by OCR, comply with
Title IX’s requirements.”
Among the
violations cited, the law school took over a year to make its final
determination on one student’s complaint, and only allowed the subject of the
complaint to participate in an appeals process that reversed that student’s
dismissal from the school. Title IX requires the complainant and the respondent
to be treated equitably in such procedures.
OCR credits
Harvard Law with correcting some of the original problems with its policies
when it adopted a policy this year in conjunction with a new university-wide
policy for addressing sexual harassment and sexual assault complaints under
Title IX.
For instance, it
previously required “clear and convincing evidence” of misconduct before there
would be formal disciplinary sanctions, but it has since adopted the
“preponderance of the evidence standard required by Title IX,” OCR
states.
That’s important,
Murphy and others say, because the preponderance standard (basically requiring
a judgment that it was more than 50 percent likely the misconduct occurred) is
the only way to give equal weight to both the complainant and the respondent.
But the new
university-wide policy prompted a number of objections, listed this fall in an
open letter by 28 Harvard Law faculty members concerned about lack of due
process for the accused and lack of independence for the law school to
determine its own approach.
OCR outlined a
number of additional problems that the school has agreed to correct. Among
these:
OCR will be
reviewing and monitoring new procedures the law school adopted in December. The
Law School has also agreed to review complaints filed in the past two school
years and provide any additional remedies to complainants if there were
inconsistencies with Title IX requirements.
The law school
will now also conduct annual climate surveys to measure the degree of sexual
harassment and violence and the impact of its policies on students.
“I congratulate
Harvard Law School for now committing to comply with Title IX and immediately
implement steps to provide a safe learning environment for its students,” said
Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights, in a statement Tuesday.
“[W]e are
confident that the new University policy and the Law School’s new procedures
comply with Title IX,” said Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow in a statement
to the law school community.
OCR entered into a
similar resolution agreement with Princeton University in November. Another OCR
Title IX sexual-violence investigation, against Harvard College, is still
pending. As of late October, OCR had 86 such pending cases involving postsecondary institutions.