Every year across the country, teenagers leave their homes to carve out a place for themselves at a university.
On campus, they immerse themselves in college life, trusting friends and school administrators with their safety.
But female college students between the ages of 18 and 24 are three times more likely to be victims of sexual violence when compared to other women, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), a leading anti-sexual assault organization.
The U.S. Department of Education requires universities to look into allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault between students, faculty or staff, under a portion of Title IX, a 1972 law requiring gender equality in schools.
Brett Harvey, the Title IX coordinator at Mississippi State University, said safety on campus is part of a university’s job.
While Harvey said “absolutely the police should and do” investigate claims of sexual crimes on campuses, the university’s administration has that duty, too.
“Just because this is a crime doesn’t mean we throw up our hands and say, ‘Well, we’re not going to do anything until the police do,'” Harvey said.
Harvey said he believes if investigating allegations of sex crimes were only up to law enforcement, or if a university was required to contact the police, many accusers would not come forward.
Sirena Cantrell, the Title IX coordinator and Dean of Students at Mississippi University for Women, agreed.
“It is our business if a student or faculty or staff was hurt by a sex crime or sexual misconduct,” Cantrell said. “I know there are people out there who think it should be done by attorneys … but a lot of people wouldn’t come forward, I think.”
Statistics back Harvey and Cantrell. Only about 20 percent of female students who are sexually assaulted contact law enforcement, according to RAINN.
But the in-house approach to sexual assault investigations has critics.
In late May, the law firm Pepper Hamilton reported officials at Baylor University in Texas had habitually covered up and mishandled claims of sexual assaults by athletes. The scandal led to the firing of the university’s head football coach and the resignation of university president Ken Starr.
A local allegation
Sydney Martin, 22, is a senior at MUW. This past semester, she went to the university’s Title IX office with sexual misconduct allegations against an employee of the university.
The employee harassed her for two semesters by asking for sex and eventually touching her inappropriately, Martin said.
She reported the employee to Cantrell’s office in March. Investigators at the Title IX office conducted interviews with Martin, her friends, the employee and others. They looked at text messages on her phone but could not look at the employee’s phone because, as Martin pointed out, they are not the court system and cannot issue warrants.
Two months after making her report, Martin received a letter from the university stating investigators had not found the employee to be in violation of the university’s sexual misconduct policy.
The process
Both Cantrell and Harvey spoke in depth about the process each university has in place for investigating sexual assault on campus. Though they’re not required to go to the police, both universities will do so if the Title IX coordinators believe a report constitutes a threat to campus.
Both also said the universities can’t investigate assaults if the accused party is not a student or employee of the university, even if the accuser is.
In the case of formal complaints, Cantrell’s office holds a preliminary investigation in which it tries to gather information and determine whether to move forward. This involves trained investigators interviewing witnesses for both the alleged victim and the accused, she said while stressing it is her office’s job to remain neutral.
Usually within 60 days, the investigators determine whether there was a violation, she said.
Harvey described a similar process at MSU.
MSU has a pool of people specifically trained to be adjudicators in cases of sexual misconduct. That panel determines responsibility in such cases.
University investigations never result in arrests or prosecutions, though. The university can only expel a student or fire an employee.
Both Cantrell and Harvey said these investigations can occur at the same time as criminal investigations. While police are not required to inform university officials if a student goes to them with a report, there’s an understanding they will, they said.
Reports of assaults
Since July 2015, the Title IX office at MSU has received reports of 22 sexual assaults, Harvey said. Some of these reports were not against students, staff or faculty at the university, he said, and in other cases the accuser chose not to pursue disciplinary action against the accused. The university convened six panels. In three of those cases, students were determined to be responsible for sexual assault and received disciplinary actions, while the other three students were not found responsible. Additionally three other students voluntarily withdrew from the university so as not to proceed with a hearing. There were no cases this past year of a MSU student who wanted to proceed with disciplinary action but the university determined there was not enough evidence to do so.
Cantrell said the Title IX office at MUW has not received any reports of sexual assault since before 2010.
Martin’s case involved allegations of sexual misconduct, per university definition.
With a lack of physical evidence, Martin said the MUW investigation was a lot of “he said, she said.”
She said she thought the text messages, coupled with the statements from her friends, should have been enough for the investigation to rule in her favor.
When asked about Martin’s case, Cantrell said she could not talk about specific individuals and the university has to be neutral and conduct a fair investigation.
Martin said she wanted the university to fire the employee she filed a report against.
Still, Martin said she probably would not have come forward at all if going to the university had not been an option. She said it did not occur to her to go to the police at the time.
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