Results of an investigation: The SUNY system

We get asked a lot about what happens when OCR conducts an investigation of a school's sexual assault policies and procedures and what OCR will find and what they will require a school to do. Obviously before an investigation is concluded, we can only speculate based on what we know about the situation on campus and what OCR has done in the past.

With so many schools under investigation we are hearing more about what schools have done to get themselves on the list and less of what becomes of them when an investigation is concluded. Erin wrote about the changes coming at OSU earlier this month, but usually we have to search to find out what OCR is requiring of a school.

I found, though, this piece about how the SUNY system has been proceeding after OCR's investigation. The voluntary agreement SUNY (with 29 schools) has entered into requires yearly reports for the next two years that assess the situation at each campus and show what steps are being taken to address sexual assault and harassment.

SUNY seems to be taking the agreement seriously noting that their tactics for addressing these problems differ across their campuses. So rather than instituting broad scope system-wide measures, they are looking at what kinds of problems are arising at each location: faculty harassment, sexual assault during travel abroad programs, and harassment by ex-boyfriends and girlfriends. See the link above for more details about what is happening across the state.