Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

[Brett Sokolow <>]

I’ve been reading this thread, and pondering it. I am torn over providing advising services for accused students, and far more torn over it than I used to be. I think it’s important to make sure they have support services, of course. I’m not sure I agree with some of those who posted that advisors need to be provided equitably under Title IX if they are provided to victims/survivors. I would do that to assure equal dignity, I suppose, but as long as male victims and female victims each have advising opportunities, Title IX is satisfied.

 

Instead, my growing concern is for HOW these accused students are advised, and I am seeing more and more legal challenges asserting that university-supplied advisors gave negligent advice, were inadequately trained, or outright tried to railroad the accused student under the guise of advising them. And, then there is the issue of confidentiality that some of you raised, which is very legit. We can designate advisors for accused students as confidential under Title IX, but many institutions do not, which then begs the issue of what they must share as mandated reporters.

 

Given the sorry state of due process across academia right now, I cannot but feel that the right advisor for accused students is a qualified and experienced attorney. Accused students report being steered away from engaging attorneys and toward campus advisors, and this too is now the subject of litigation. I’m pushing very hard to see due process respected by every university, and I hope you are, too. There is nothing worse for a victim/survivor than seeing the sloppy work of a university being easily overturned in court in a lawsuit filed by the accused student. It’s both institutional betrayal and secondary re-victimization.

 

Yes, there are clearly downsides to having more attorneys involved in the campus resolution process, but that barn door is already open now thanks to VAWA, and for better or for worse, the advocacy community fought hard for that right on behalf of victims. I’ve been advising our clients that to offer campus-based advisors to both parties requires a lot of commitment in time, resources, and training. If it is done well, I don’t see it as a negative, but rarely is it done so well that it doesn't open a door for some sort of legal challenge. 

 

Regards, 

Brett A. Sokolow

Brett A. Sokolow, Esq.
Attorney-at-Law

President & CEO, The NCHERM Group LLC

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From: "Tuttle Bell, Cara" <>
Date: Monday, August 22, 2016 at 2:47 PM
To: "Torres-Zickler, Alina M." <>, "" <>
Subject: RE: Support for Accused

 

We do offer trained advisers as an option for accused students.  These individuals are student affairs staff outside of our conduct and prevention education/victim advocacy services who have volunteered to be available if requested.  They are not confidential resources.  They receive a day of training on our sexual misconduct process, in addition to training they would have already received about being responsible employees and campus security authorities.  We also always make sure that either the Director of Student Accountability (conduct), our Title IX Coordinator or our Title IX Compliance Manager provides support options information to accused students, preferably via in-person meeting.  While our victim advocacy center, Project Safe, is not available to accused students, the interim measures are, and we refer accused students to the Psychological and Counseling Center, Student Health Center, and/or various University chaplains for additional support.

 

Kind regards,

 

Cara

 

Cara Tuttle Bell, JD

Director

Project Safe Center for Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response

Vanderbilt University

Pronouns:  she, her, hers

(615) 875-0660

(615) 875-0735 (fax)

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/projectsafe

 

 

From: Torres-Zickler, Alina M. [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2016 2:45 PM
To:
Subject: Support for Accused

 

Good afternoon -

There are several administrators on my campus that are requesting that our office (which oversee Title IX and houses the Title IX Coordinator and Title IX deputy) create support positions for accused students. We currently have three staff on our campus who are considered confidential as part of our sexual misconduct support. These three confidential supports are not full time devoted to support work, it is about 20% of their jobs. Those three staff members support survivors of sexual misconduct. These staff members do not include the support and counseling provided by our counseling center which is available to all students and of course, confidential.

 

My questions are: Do your campuses have specific support people for accused students? If so, are they confidential? What type of support do they provide.

Does anyone have cases or references you can point me towards that suggest/require that we have support services for the accused?

Any insight would be appreciated!

-Alina

 

 

Alina Torres-Zickler

Assistant Director

Office of Social Equity

West Chester University

Ph. 610.436.2838

Email:

 

Pronouns: She, her, hers

 

Be kind, for everyone is fighting their own quiet battle. - Cicero