Baylor is irredeemable

This week we learned that Baylor planted a mole inside student groups comprised of sexual assault survivors in order to both shape the PR/recovery efforts and to encourage the women to shift their paradigms and language about what happened to them when the school failed (a word they were encouraged to abandon) to investigate and address their claims of sexual assault.

Also this week, Dr. Roxanne Gay published a piece of commentary in The New York Times about the return to the public sphere of celebrity men who had been accused of sexual misconduct.

And, finally, as Erin wrote about, there are the Department of Education's proposed rule changes to the sexual assault guidelines for schools.

It was a tough week. These three events, on their own, are each frustrating, maddening, demoralizing. I will focus mostly on Baylor in this post, but what I took from this week, from these things--in the aggregate--is that they are a clear demonstration of how little we care about victims and how little attention is given to prevention.

As I write this post, Gay's latest book, an anthology of stories about rape and sexual assault called Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture sits on my end table where it has been for weeks. I have not had the emotional fortitude to pick it up. I certainly do not have it this week. But I know I must begin to read these stories--as everyone who has the ability to should. Because as the Baylor news and the surprise appearance of Louis C.K. at the Comedy Store in NYC this week, and the rumors of Matt Lauer's return to public life reveal--victims' stories are being erased, manipulated, and conveniently forgotten.

Baylor engaged in manipulation--horribly offensive and immoral behavior. (Is it even necessary to say "especially for a religiously affiliated school that implicitly claims a moral high ground"?)
Baylor, of course, denies the characterization of the Director of Student Activities, Matt Burchett as a mole saying that students were free to turn down his suggestions and that he was just keeping administration apprised of what was happening among the student body; in other words--this is his job. There was no respect for confidentiality, and there were no good intentions in regard to helping these students.

The utter violation of trust--at multiple turns--is one of the things I found so astounding in this story. These students already did not feel supported. They went to administrators to share their stories and nothing was done. Some were told that the person they reported as their assailant already had reports against him. There are so many accounts, from victims across the country, that include stories about being re-traumatized. Some victims have shared that the greatest trauma. the greatest violation, was what happened after their assaults.

It is time to shift the thinking about what constitutes "action" when we are talking about and reporting on sexual assault complaints on college campuses. Let's stop saying that schools did nothing in response to reports of sexual assault and harassment on their campuses. Because ignoring a complaint is doing something. Because telling a student that her reported rapist has other complaints against him and yet he is still on the football team, is doing something. It is denying a student action, a version of safety, access to education. It is breaking the law. It is doing harm. There is nothing passive about these actions. The deliberateness of Baylor's response not to the actual assaults but to the negative publicity the school and administrators received when the culture and patterns of sexual violence were revealed reflect this.

One issue with the proposed new regulations is that schools' active inactions, what Erin referred to as the "insufficient response," will not necessarily result in liability. (It was pretty clear that Baylor responded with deliberate indifference, so the proposals would not necessarily leave them unaccountable.)

I want to point out that we are not even talking about stopping or curbing rape, assault, and harassment--not really. We are talking about how effectively schools are responding to these incidents. The discussions about climates of sexual violence are side conversations at this point. The focus of activism and certainly of lawsuits and complaints is about how schools address reported rapes--not about how to stop them from happening in the first place. And while these things might, in some ways, be related, those connections are not explicit.

What is a sufficient/an effective/a just response, is at issue in the Baylor case and also a topic in Gay's column.  She writes about the #metoo movement and men in the public sphere, but her work is applicable to what is happening on college campuses and what could/will happen if the proposed regulations are put into effect (after the public comment period). I excerpted the following from Gay's piece that I found particularly relevant:

And this is what is so difficult about justice and sexual violence — the repercussions of the crime can last a lifetime. Satisfying justice may not be possible, but we can certainly do better given that all too often, victims of sexual harassment and violence receive no justice at all. 

We spend so little energy thinking about justice for victims and so much energy thinking about the men who perpetrate sexual harassment and violence. We worry about what will become of them in the wake of their mistakes. We don’t worry as much about those who have suffered at their hands. It is easier, for far too many people, to empathize with predators than it is to empathize with prey.

We see this empathy in the support for the backlash movement in which the accused are suing their institutions, claiming versions of reverse discrimination and sexism. We see it in the proposed rule changes and the Secretary of Education's public comments about campus sexual assault and a "fair" process for everyone. We see it in the support for fired football coach Art Briles.

Less publicized is the vitriol aimed at the women who file reports and complaints. We do not keep statistics about how many of them leave their institutions. How many vile things are tweeted or posted on Facebook and other social media platforms about them.

And while there are numbers about how many schools are facing complaints, the majority of the stories behind these complaints are far less public than the ones at Baylor, which--like Louis C.K.--continues to press on largely unscathed and offering little in the way of apologies.

Proposed New Sexual Misconduct Rule Imports Deliberate Indifference Standard

The New York Times is reporting that it has obtained a copy of its proposed rule addressing educational institutions obligations under Title IX to respond to sexual misconduct, which the Department of Education is planning to release for public comment.

Though the proposed rule contains many departures from the guidelines presented by the previous administration, right off the bat it is worth noting that at least it appears to retain the basic idea that sexual misconduct, even when it is a crime, is still a legitimate basis for investigation and discipline by colleges and universities. There are no wild proposals to outsource all campus investigations to police and prohibit universities from being involved.

Reportedly, however, the proposed rule makes it easier for institutions to avoid Title IX liability for insufficient response to sexual misconduct by essentially importing to the context of government enforcement the very narrow that the courts use for finding institutions liable for money damages. There are three components of that judicial standard that are reflected in the proposed rule: (1) it uses a narrow definition of sexual harassment*, and it only imposes liability when (2) a campus official with authority to address the misconduct have actual notice of the harassment, and (3) that the campus responds to that notice with deliberate indifference.

This proposed adoption of the judicial standard is misguided because the reasons that standard is so narrow absolutely do not apply to government enforcement of Title IX.  When the Supreme Court developed the standard for cases in which students sought money damages against an institution for its violations of Title IX, it explained that it had to be a narrow one because Title IX is primarily a contract between an institution and the government: the institution gets federal funding, but agrees to follow the government's rules about sex discrimination in exchange. Students are, essentially, third party beneficiaries to this contract. It would be unfair, said the Supreme Court, to blindside institutions with the possibility of paying large damages awards to their students, as a consequence of accepting these obligations owed to the government. As such, the Court said, we are only going to impose that kind of liability in a narrow set of circumstances: limited examples of sexual harassment, that the university essentially intended to ignore through its deliberate indifference to known instances or threats of such harassment.

Unlike judicial enforcement of plaintiff's claims for money damages, government enforcement does not risk blindsiding a university. It is always prospective in nature. The enforcement process, sometimes frustratingly so, gives universities ample opportunity to conform their policies and practices to OCR's requirements before they are ever faced with a financial consequence (loss of federal funding). In fact, no university has ever been subjected to that penalty. Universities always have an opportunity to decide, if they don't like the way the government is enforcing the law, to opt out of the contract in the first place, and suffer no penalty.  Consequently, as long as the agency's interpretation stays within the outer limits of Title IX, it can impose more specific requirements about what an institution needs to do to address sexual misconduct, and what misconduct triggers that response. There is no need to have an overly narrow definition of harassment, or the high burden of proving actual notice and deliberate indifference.

The proposed rule is maddening because it imports the narrow standard of judicial liability into a context that it was not designed to apply. And the result is that it would let universities get away with doing far too little to address a problem that impairs the civil rights of its students. The deliberate indifference standard as it applies in the courts lets institutions off the hook for doing almost nothing in response to incidents and threats of sexual harassment (and sometimes courts applying the deliberate indifference standard absolved institutions for doing *exactly* nothing!).

There are other specific provisions of the proposed rule that also deserve attention. It would permit institutions to use the clear and convincing standard. It would permit them to use informal mediation in serious cases like rape. It would permit them to ignore sexual misconduct that takes place in off-campus student housing. At the same time, it subjects them to liability for ignoring the rights of accused students, which, given that complainants are only protected by the requirement to avoid deliberate indifference, seriously tips the scales in accused students' favor.

When the proposal is official released, there will be an opportunity for public comment, which theoretically could persuade the agency to modify the rule before it becomes final. So it's not a done deal. Major changes, however, would be unlikely.

*Specifically, the proposed would require that sexual harassment be "so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person access to the school’s education program or activity." In contrast, the previous administration's broader definition was "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature," that includes "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature."

Fourth Circuit Rules that University's Preliminary Inquiry into Harssment Complaint Does Not Violate Free Speech

Though not precisely a Title IX decision in the usual type for this blog, I was interested in this decision I read recently affirming a university's preliminary investigation of harassment charges stemming from an intentionally provocative student-organized campus event.

The event in question was orchestrated by a student at the University of South Carolina on behalf of student groups seeking to protest their perception of censorship on campus and beyond. The student sought and received the university's permission to hold the event, which showcased symbols like the swastika and posters of racial slurs. University officials also defended the event to those who complained and argued that it was inappropriate. Later, the university received several complaints that the event constituted discrimination and harassment because of the symbols and slurs that it promoted, and because of alleged hostile behavior the encountered there.  University officials called the organizing student, who was named in the complaint, in for a 30-45 minute meeting to discuss the complaints.  A few weeks later, the university informed the student that it had concluded it had no basis for going forward with an investigation.

Nevertheless the student sued the university alleging violation of free speech. Yes, even though the university permitted the event, defended it, and declined to even open a formal investigation of the complaints others made about it, the student alleged that the university's preliminary inquiry into the complaints about the event violated the student's rights under First Amendment. Last week, however, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's dismissal of this case, rejecting arguments that the preliminary inquiry causes an unconstitutional chilling effect of free speech and is more intervention than necessary to protect the university's interests.

When a university receives a complaint or other information that harassment on the basis of sex, race, or some protected class has occurred, civil rights laws like Title IX require the university to respond in some way. Otherwise, the university could be liable for deliberate indifference. This doesn't mean the university must engage in a disciplinary response every time it receives a complaint. It should, however, do some kind of preliminary investigation to determine if the complaint warrants pursuing. At the very least, this can mean having a conversation with the person named in the complaint to get that person's side of the story, which is what the university did here.

The court's ruling affirms that a preliminary inquiry like the one in this case does not violate the free speech rights of the student against whom the complaint is made. In fact, it protects respondents' rights, since it provides an alternative to a formal investigation in response to every complaint. In my view, the only world in which a university can't even engage in a preliminary inquiry of a harassment complaint is one in which the university can't censored and sanction harassing speech at all (presumably, this is the student's position, since why else would he sue on these facts?).  But as courts have already held, and as this one affirms, there is an outer limit to free speech: harassment that is sufficiently severe and pervasive and disruptive of other students' civil rights in education.    

The student's free speech event at USC apparently did not cross that line, but the university was right to at least follow up with the complaints that said it did.

Decision: Abbott v. Pastides, 2018 WL 3910682 (Aug. 16, 2018).

Florida School Loses Bathroom Discrimination Case to Transgender Student

Yet another court has ruled in favor of a transgender student's right to use the bathroom according to their gender identity. But unlike many of the previous judicial rulings we've blogged about on this topic, which have been in the context of preliminary relief, this court's ruling came after an actual trial. This means that rather than predicting the plaintiff's likely success on the merits, the court in this case had the opportunity to conclude that the plaintiff did in fact succeed on the merits. It awarded the plaintiff, a transgender high school student whose gender identity is male, a permanent injunction that permits him to use the boys' bathroom at Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, as well as $1000 in damages.

If you've followed other cases like this, the reasoning employed by this court is consistent and familiar. Its Equal Protection analysis considered the school's bathroom usage policy, which was based on student's biological or birth sex, under intermediate scrutiny, a test that requires the school to present an important justification and reasonably tailored means. The school predictably argued that its policy served purposes like privacy and safety, but the court rejected them as logically inconsistent with the policy itself. All students can access privacy by using the stalls or one of several single-user bathrooms in the building. Nor was there any evidence to support the idea that a transgender student's presence in the boy's bathroom posed a safety risk. The plaintiff had used the boys' bathroom for a six-week period before the school banned him, during which time no problems occurred. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that a transgender student is more likely than any other student to threaten the safety of other users. The court also favored the plaintiff's Title IX claim, rejecting the school board's argument that because Title IX and its regulations permit bathroom facilities to be segregated based on "sex" that necessarily means biological sex to the exclusion of considerations of gender identity. Instead, the court concluded that "the meaning of 'sex' in Title IX includes 'gender identity' for purposes of its application to transgender students."

Adams v. Sch. Bd. of St. Johns Cty., Fla., 2018 WL 3583843 (M.D. Fla. July 26, 2018).