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  Thursday, April 3, 2003



  Harvard's Sexual-Assault Policy Does Not Violate Students'
  Rights, U.S. Inquiry Concludes

  By ERIC HOOVER
  
    
  
  The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has
  determined that Harvard University's policy for investigating
  reports of sexual assaults by students does not violate a
  federal law prohibiting gender-based discrimination. The
  eight-month investigation of the policy resulted from a
  complaint filed anonymously by a student last June. 
  
  Harvard had changed its sexual-assault policy last spring to
  try to streamline the complaint process and avoid difficult
  "he said/she said" cases, university officials said at the
  time (The Chronicle, May 24, 2002). The new procedures
  required Harvard officials to determine in advance of an
  investigation whether there was "sufficient independent
  corroboration," including eyewitnesses or physical evidence,
  of a reported assault. If no such corroboration was available,
  officials could dismiss the complaint and refer students to a
  lawyer or to a mediation process to resolve the matter. 
  
  Critics of those provisions, including the Coalition Against
  Sexual Violence, a campus group, alleged that the policy was
  biased against women and that it unfairly raised the bar of
  proof required in sexual-assault cases. After a protest
  against the policy by students and a letter-writing campaign
  by some alumni last year, Harvard changed the wording of the
  policy, to require "supporting information" instead of
  "sufficient independent corroboration." 
  
  The Department of Education released a letter on Tuesday
  announcing the results of its investigation into whether the
  Harvard policy violated Title IX of the Education Amendments
  of 1972, which bars sex discrimination at educational
  institutions that receive federal funds. Thomas J. Hibino,
  director of the New England regional office of the Department
  of Education, noted Harvard's new wording, and wrote that "OCR
  did not find sufficient evidence to establish that the changes
  to the grievance procedures, as explained by the college
  staff, deprive students of access to a process providing a
  prompt and equitable resolution of their complaints."  
  
  In a statement, Harry R. Lewis, dean of the college at
  Harvard, said: "We are pleased to learn that the Office of
  Civil Rights has determined, as the university has always
  believed, that Harvard College's disciplinary procedures do
  not violate the requirements of Title IX." 
  
  Wendy B. Murphy, the lawyer for the complainant, said she was
  "pleased over all" with the decision, as well as with the
  changed wording of Harvard's policy. 
  
  "The purpose of the OCR is not to point the finger and
  punish," Ms. Murphy said. "Harvard originally had the
  authority to slam the door in the face of victims who had
  insufficient evidence -- an unbelievably barbaric standard." 
  
  Alisha Johnson, a junior and a board member of Coalition
  Against Sexual Violence, said that the department's
  investigation had "forced Harvard to pay attention to what it
  was doing," but that she remained "worried" about the policy. 
  
  "A lot of people on campus aren't sure what [the wording of
  the policy] means, so they may not come forward" to report a
  sexual assault, Ms. Johnson said. "It's really Harvard's
  responsibility to make it clear that they will investigate
  every complaint." 
  


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Dear List members:

UVA is changing how discussion lists are managed.  Right now, a few of you 
are subscribed to receive posts as they are sent; most of you are 
subscribed to the digest form.  In the new system, you can choose to 
receive posts either in the regular format or digest format.  I will be 
doing some moving around of subscriptions, so soon you will be receiving 
individual posts and NOT digests.  This way, you can make manage your own 
accounts as you see fit.

The website for membership subscription management is
http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/email/mailing-lists/mm-member.html#memconfigform

Once you receive a new welcome message (to sapc; not sapc-digest), then you 
can visit the above site and adjust your subscription to your needs.

This also means that this management system will archive all posts from 
this date forward, and you will be able to search by topic (hurrah!) 
henceforth.  But the old posts will stay on my website unless we can figure 
out what to do with them.

Thanks for your patience,
Claire


Claire N. Kaplan
Coordinator, UVA Sexual Assault Education Office
Doctoral Candidate, Curry School of Education
UVA Women's Center  *  P.O. Box 800588 *  Charlottesville VA  *  22908-0588
434-982-2774 (V/TTY)    434-982-2901 (Fax)

http://sexualassault.virginia.edu

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