Campus still faces Title IX inquiries

FAYETTEVILLE — Federal civil rights investigations remain open into the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville handling of Title IX misconduct reports, a UA spokesman said.

Student reports of sexual harassment and sexual violence generally require a campus response under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funds.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in April 2016 opened Title IX investigations into UA, according to a list on the department’s website, which states that appearing on the list “does not mean that the institution violated a federal anti-discrimination statute.”

UA spokesman Mark Rushing said Thursday that two Office for Civil Rights cases involving UA’s Title IX response remain pending. He declined to provide further comment “due to student privacy concerns.”

On Monday, a former student and the university agreed to a $100,000 settlement, plus legal fees, in a Title IX lawsuit that alleged “deliberate indifference” in the UA response to her 2014 report of rape.

In April 2016, UA was among 181 postsecondary institutions under U.S. Education Department investigation for issues related to campus sexual violence. The department’s most recent update lists 227 pending Title IX sexual violence investigations at postsecondary institutions, according to a Democrat-Gazette analysis.

Some colleges have more than one such investigation pending.