Sex assault policy now covers bias, complaint guidelines

The University of Hawaii has revised its policy on sexual assault on its campuses for the second time in six months, representing the latest effort to strengthen its response to reports of sex discrimination amid increased scrutiny from federal auditors and state legislators.

The updated policy, signed this week by UH President David Lassner, includes an expanded list of conduct the university will not tolerate, including specific examples of sex discrimination and gender-based violence. It also outlines how students, faculty and staff can seek confidential support and file formal complaints, and lays out how incidents will be addressed by the university.

“One of my highest priorities has been to ensure that all our campuses maintain and promote safe and respectful environments for all students, faculty, staff and visitors,” Lassner said in an email blast announcing the changes Tuesday to the UH community.

Jennifer Rose, director of the university’s newly created system Office of Institutional Equity, said the revised policy has broader jurisdiction.

“It covers sex discrimination, whereas the previous one was focused on (federal Violence Against Women Act) crimes, so domestic violence, dating violence, stalking and sexual assault,” Rose told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “So it’s not just the most egregious forms of prohibited behaviors, but also sex discrimination, like sexual harassment or other kinds of gender-based harassment, that would fall under this.”

Rose said some of the revisions were informed by the experiences of victims.

“We were able to focus on not just looking at formal grievances, but I think our new policy is very strong in that it’s looking at interim measures, trying to provide resources, including confidential resources, all the things that victims have been saying for a long time, that it’s not that ‘I want to file a formal grievance,’ but ‘I just want this to stop. I just want to be supported by the university and be able to receive my education,’” she said. “So we looked at what are the things it’s going to take to get there.”

The policy includes clearer language and adopts a tone that emphasizes a student’s right to an education free from sex discrimination. For example, the former policy stated its purpose as prohibiting certain behaviors and providing guidance to help administrators comply with federal law.

The updated policy, by contrast, says its purpose is to “establish an integrated and consistent approach to preventing, reporting and promptly responding to” all forms of sex discrimination, adding that UH “is committed to maintaining and promoting safe and respectful campus environments that are free from sex discrimination and gender-based violence.”

“What’s also different from the policy that’s on the books now is we took it from soups to nuts in terms of an experience, so it’s the policy and the procedure,” Jan Gouveia, UH system vice president for administration, said in an interview. “It identifies what the institutional responsibilities are around ensuring safety and ensuring equity.”

Gouveia said the system policy supersedes any “minipolicies” at individual campuses to ensure a standardized response. “Everybody follows the same rules of the game because we’re all going to cross the finish together,” she said.

Under the federal civil rights law known as Title IX, sexual harassment and sexual violence are prohibited forms of sex discrimination. Schools are required to adopt policies and procedures that ensure a “prompt and equitable” response to complaints of sexual violence.

Eight sexual assaults were reported to UH-Manoa authorities during the 2013-14 school year, the most recent year for which data are available. The year before, there were 11 reported assaults on the campus, which educates 19,500 students.

Prodding by the state Legislature earlier this year prompted the university in February to implement a revised sexual assault policy that for the first time included an affirmative consent standard for investigating reports of sexual assault, sexual harassment, dating violence and stalking. That essentially changed the way rape is defined on campus so that any person accused of sexual assault must prove the accuser gave “affirmative, conscious and voluntary” consent to engage in sexual activity.

Lawmakers had proposed mandating such a policy by law but allowed the university to come up with its own rules.

“We were hearing from community groups and stakeholders about stories from victims who were re-traumatized when they wanted to make a complaint; complaints that were falling through the cracks; students who were dropping out of school because they didn’t feel like they were safe,” state Rep. Linda Ichiyama, vice chairwoman of the House Higher Education Committee, said in an interview. “For the Women’s Legislative Caucus, that was unacceptable.”

The Women’s Legislative Caucus, made up of lawmakers in the state House and Senate, began asking questions almost two years ago, around the time the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights initiated a Title IX investigation at the flagship Manoa campus.

Last summer the U.S. DOE for the first time released a list of campuses nationwide with pending Title IX sexual violence investigations. UH-Manoa was one of 55 schools on the initial list, which the federal government said included investigations opened because of complaints received as well as investigations initiated as so-called compliance reviews to remedy possible violations of rights. Amid increased national attention on the issue, the list of schools had more than doubled by this summer.

UH officials say the university’s probe is a compliance audit and that they expect to negotiate a voluntary resolution agreement. Even so, UH says it began focusing attention on the issue even before the review was initiated.

“There has been a fairly significant transformation that has occurred at the institutional level around programs and support for Title IX and (Violence Against Women Act) initiatives,” Gouveia said. “There has been a prioritization and therefore investments made in how we respond to and address these matters.”

The revised policy adds to a new resource website — hawaii.edu/titleix — also launched this week; the Office of Institutional Equity to act as a systemwide resource center under Rose, who previously served as UH-Manoa’s gender equity specialist; and the hiring of three new dedicated Title IX coordinators to handle complaints and investigations.

The updated policy — which UH is calling interim, because it is still subject to further consultation with employee labor unions — was developed over the past six months with student and community input, including advocacy groups representing sexual assault victims, civil rights, gender equity and social services.

Naomi Iwabuchi, a second-year law student at UH-Manoa’s William S. Richardson School of Law, served as a student representative on the advisory group convened by Lassner, the president, to provide recommendations to improve UH’s sexual assault policy. She openly talks about her experience as a victim of sexual assault on the Manoa campus as a freshman in 2007.

“When I was an undergrad, I experienced sex assault firsthand, and my understanding of the policy, just based on my own experience, was that it was pretty limited in what it offered. It didn’t seem like it was fully complete,” Iwabuchi, 24, said in an interview.

“Now there’s pretty much an overall guideline for procedures on more of a step-by-step basis,” she said. “The university wants a streamlined process so that victims don’t have to go through the assault and the harassment and then have additional stress in seeing their case resolved. I’m optimistic about it.”