Data show UA’s response to sex-violence cases

FAYETTEVILLE — Last year, a University of Arkansas campus investigation into a report of sexual violence took nearly four months before a student faced a disciplinary hearing.

Two other cases also took longer than 100 days, one involving a report of sexual assault and the other of domestic/dating violence.

The 66 days on average that it took to get a hearing in UA cases last year exceeded the 60-day timeline recommended by the U.S. Department of Education for wrapping up such investigations, although the department’s guidelines don’t require that all such cases be resolved that quickly.

Federal education authori- ties have said that, under the law that prohibits sex-based discrimination, schools must respond promptly and equitably to reports of sexual violence and sexual harassment involving students.

This year, a UA student said she waited more than 100 days for a hearing after reporting in late April that she had been raped by another student who, the woman said, was out of the country after the spring semester.

“It was really difficult being at home during the summer with the 60 days approaching and then passing and still not having any answers,” said the 22-year-old woman. The student she said raped her was ultimately expelled.

More than 200 college campuses, including UA, are facing formal investigations

by federal authorities over their responses to sexual violence complaints. That’s an approximately 275 percent increase since May 2014, when 55 schools were under investigation.

Federal investigations can result in the loss of U.S. funding, although no school has lost such funding at this point. Also, several schools, including UA, face civil litigation filed by current or former students.

Yet basic information about the handling of these cases at the campus level — how many are reported, how long investigations last, and what the outcomes are — largely is undisclosed, despite calls from some federal legislators and campus groups for increased transparency to help combat sexual violence.

From beginning to end, the campus process for investigating student reports differs from the criminal justice system. UA students are about three times more likely to initially tell staff members or student resident assistants about an instance of sexual violence than to tell police, according to a list of 116 campus investigations for 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16.

Many of those cases involved reports of sexual harassment. Forty were listed as either “sexual violence” or “sexual assault,” terms used interchangeably by federal authorities. Others related to domestic/dating violence, while some cases did not list the nature of the complaint.

The list, prepared in response to a request by federal investigators and released in redacted form under the state’s public disclosure law, indicated the lack of a campus investigation in 20 out of the 116 cases.

Sometimes the initial reports ended up not relating to sexual harassment or sexual violence, a UA spokesman said, and other times students declined to share information or to even meet with investigators.

In cases that resulted in a campus disciplinary hearing, five students were expelled under UA’s definition of sexual misconduct, according to a summary of hearing outcomes released by UA to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The standard that schools use to decide campus cases is whether a student was, more likely than not, responsible for misconduct.

Case documents, released in redacted form, from July 2015 showed two additional students were initially expelled in sexual misconduct cases but those decisions were reversed after appeals. More recent documents have not been released.

In other cases, sanctions varied. An April 2015 sexual misconduct case resulted in a suspension for as long as the person victimized remained a student at UA. A disciplinary panel had found it more likely than not that “the student consumed alcohol on campus and engaged in sexual intercourse without the complaint’s [sic] consent.”

SECURITY REPORTS

Every year, colleges and universities publish security reports that list the numbers of crimes on campus, including sexual assault. But the information focuses on criminal offenses and doesn’t take into account what may occur off campus, said Laura Bennett, president of the Association of Student Conduct Administration.

UA’s most recent security report listed 16 reported rape or fondling instances from 2012-14.

Bennett said the hope is that when it comes to sexual assault, students go to police. It’s UA’s policy to encourage students in such cases to file police reports.

“The reality is sometimes the victim doesn’t want that. Sometimes there’s not enough evidence to build a case, so colleges still have to deal with those situations,” Bennett said.

Citing Title IX, the law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at schools that receive federal funding, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has set standards and guidelines for schools when responding to reports of sexual violence.

UA, like other schools, has a Title IX coordinator and staff members who investigate students’ complaints, whether students first report the sexual violence to police, staff or faculty members, or directly to the Title IX office.

Inaction by the school can create a hostile environment for the student, a 2014 U.S. Department of Education document states, which also notes the importance of interim measures to help the victim where appropriate, such as allowing the student to adjust school schedules or housing.

The 60-calendar-days guideline for investigations, including disciplinary decisions, was exceeded at UA, on average, in 2015. For 22 cases — for which paperwork indicates when the investigations started and when hearings took place — the average was 72 days before a decision was made on any sanctions.

“While we work to complete every investigation in the most efficient manner possible based on the unique circumstances of each case, the university believes that thorough investigations that lead to fair outcomes is the ultimate goal,” UA spokesman Mark Rushing said in an email.

He added that federal authorities acknowledge that not all cases are the same, and he cited the complexity of an investigation, the severity and extent of misconduct, and breaks in an academic year as examples of circumstances that can extend the process.

He also said students “are relying more heavily on attorneys as advisors.” Attorneys at times advise students to request additional meetings before any hearing or for “continuances,” Rushing wrote, thereby extending the process.

The 60-day benchmark matters because, if there is a student who poses a danger, a prompt resolution “limits the risk to the complainant and to others in the university community,” said Erin Buzuvis, a professor at Western New England University School of Law, who writes often about Title IX issues.

Rushing also said a lack of student availability can slow the process.

In the case of the woman who told the Democrat-Gazette about her lengthy case, it’s unclear what UA did to reach out to the male student as part of the campus investigation.

The woman said he was out of the country over the summer, but that investigators could have reached out to him in the spring.

“Could you not have talked to him then?” she said, referring to UA, adding, “I don’t think it should have taken more than a month or two.”

But she credited UA with helping her adjust her schedule in the days after she filed her report so she could take her exams early.

In case documents released by UA, a 19-year-old student emailed a UA staff member to say “shame on you guys and the system.”

In the email exchange, she cited health problems and stress as reasons for declining to attend a meeting and disciplinary hearing. That email was sent in reply after a UA staff member said the student’s absence could affect the hearing outcome.

The staff member then apologized for saying that, and the student wrote that she did not go to police in the first place because she didn’t want her report made public, “given that this would involve the [redacted] it would be big.”

She added: “I did not want to be that girl that was putting her school in the media.”

The redacted emails, from May 2014, were released by UA in sequence with a redacted hearing decision for a student “alleged to have participated in physical assault, use of a controlled substance, sexual assault, and threatening behavior and statements.”

The accused student was not found responsible for sexual assault, and UA put him on conduct probation. The student also was ordered to attend counseling and complete an anger management course.

UA documented some students who declined to participate in the early stages of investigations.

“Student initially did not respond, then scheduled and no-showed,” one UA document states.

Chris Kaiser, director of public policy and general counsel for the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, said the specifics of a case matter.

“If a school reached out in a trauma-informed, clear way and said to the student that we heard something happened, we’ve got a report that you may have been a victim of sexual violence, we’re checking in with you to go over your options with you — and just received no reply at all — then that’s probably fulfilling their obligation,” Kaiser said.

UA Chancellor Joe Steinmetz in a June letter to state legislators said: “When alleged misconduct does occur, we encourage students to report it, we provide extensive support and resources, and we actively and fairly investigate and review the matter through our disciplinary process, respecting the rights of both complainants and respondents, and addressing misconduct when it is substantiated.”

Kristen Jozkowski, a UA assistant professor of community health promotion, said sexual assault often goes underreported as students consider the social repercussions of following through with complaints.

“I think that sometimes what gets forgotten about in a lot of these cases is that generally, more often than not, the perpetrator and victim know each other,” Jozkowski said. Victims also may feel that they will not be believed, she said.

The complaints listed by UA involve less than a half-percent of UA’s more than 26,000 students.

But those numbers don’t tell the full story, Jozkowski said. She said research shows that about one out of every five college women in the United States will experience a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. She called the studies “pretty consistent since the 1950s.”

She is working with state Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, on a sexual assault survey of UA students that could also be administered at other campuses.

“I would say an anonymous survey type of mechanism for collecting this data is actually going to be more accurate and more in line with what’s actually happening,” Jozkowski said.

A federal bill, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, would require campus surveys and the public release of details on how schools handle student complaints, including sanction information.

At the University of Kansas, a student and faculty task force last year noted the lack of information available about the handling of sexual violence complaints.

“The KU community is not informed in aggregate or in particular cases about what happens to sexual assault complaints that are made. This lack of transparency undermines trust and prevents effective, tailored policy responses,” the report stated.

UA’s Rushing said the school plans its own sexual assault survey, a separate undertaking from Leding’s, and to share summary information with the campus. He declined to comment about the federal bill.

Some have called for more scrutiny of data collected now and asked why the data is so lacking.

The American Association of University Women found that 91 percent of schools did not report any rapes for 2014, leading 31 U.S. senators to draft a July 1 letter asking for an examination of “where schools are falling short” in either not documenting such instances or failing to create a comfortable environment for students to step forward.

Reporting her rape has been emotionally taxing, said the woman who described her lengthy case to the Democrat-Gazette. The day after what she described as a nighttime assault, she said, she confided in a UA staff member whom she trusted, not knowing that a campus investigation would result. A police investigation into her report of sexual assault remains pending, she said.

“I feel like every day since [reporting] I’ve convinced myself a little bit more that I’ve done the right thing. I’m nowhere near where I want to be with that, but it’s getting there,” she said.