The Problem with the University Wide Committee
Photo: Carol Hsin
April 12, 2011
Provost Salovey announced on Thursday, April 7 that the University will be reforming the way it deals with sexual grievance issues. It is inspiring and exciting that the University is taking the Title IX complaint so seriously and that it is acting so quickly on these issues. The new University Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct will address some major issues: for one, students in all of Yale’s Graduate Schools and Yale College will report sexual assault and harassment to one, university-wide committee. As of now, each school has its own way of dealing with these issues, so a student in the Law School reports to one board, whereas someone in the Medical School reports to a completely different one. This has some obvious major issues: when a victim and perpetrator are in different schools, for example, it’s unclear to which board the victim should report. It’s also problematic in some of the smaller schools, where the teachers who serve on the boards may know one or both of the people involved and form opinions based on their previous experiences with them.
But the new board, which will still be made up of students, professors, and a university fact finder, will still have some major issues. I’m glad to see that there will be a professional fact finder. Fact finding before has been assigned to already busy professors and faculty members who simply don’t have enough time to give cases the full attention they require. Having a professionally-trained fact finder assigned to this position will help deal with this issue, though the university still doesn’t have the ability to use rape kits or investigate physical evidence by other means.
Still, there’s one major issue that the new grievance board won’t be equipped to deal with: faculty, unlike prosecutors or law-enforcement officers, are much more likely to look for “teaching moments” rather than punishment. Rape, attempted rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment are serious crimes. Yale has been far too willing to give students a “slap on the wrist” for crimes that would get years in prison if they went up in courtrooms. It’s indicative that over the past few years, of the 3 men who have been found guilty of sexual assault at Yale only one got suspended, and only for a semester (the other two were put on probation). Yale’s new board must reform not only who is on the committee and the wideness of its scope, but also how it deals with the perpetrators brought before it.
Dean Miller says she believes that Yale is not in violation of the letter or the spirit of Title IX in a note to parents. Even if federal investigators agree with her, these issues have to be resolved if Miller wants to stand by her letter to students, that Yale truly “does not and will not tolerate sexual harassment, and seeks to build an environment that is supportive of women and of men, and of people of all gender and sexual identities.”
Miranda Lewis is a junior in Yale College. She is a contributing writer for Broad Recognition.
Comments (1)
You point out a lot of things that could go wrong with this. Ultimately, the fact finding will depend on the character, sensitivity and skill of the person selected, and also of the institutional demands Yale makes on her or him. As you suggest, the outcomes of any given case might not be affected by this reorganization.
A cynic might suggest that Yale is reshuffling committees and making other cosmetic improvements in an attempt to placate investigators of the Title IX complaint. In another article on this subject, the writer asked how Yale could build an entire campus in 2 years, but fail to improve its handling of complaints of rape and sexual assault in 30 years. I think this is something everyone should ask.
posted by Some guy April 22nd, 2011 at 1:29 am