Megan Reed, Campus Carrier Editor-in-Chief
Berry’s sexual misconduct policy is undergoing changes to comply with federal guidelines, and a draft of the new policy was released last week and is open for comment.
Dean of students Debbie Heida presented the draft at the April 14 SGA meeting, and students were able to attend two meetings on April 14 and 21 to provide feedback. The document was also posted on Viking Web and discussed with faculty, and students can submit further suggestions to SGA.
Heida said the college has chosen to revise the policy to ensure student safety and acknowledge the presence of sexual misconduct on campus.
“We want to be a community that cares about its students,” she said. “With 2,100 students and 500 faculty and staff we will have incidents that we need to address as a college.”
Berry’s current policy was written during the 2003-2004 academic year but required changes to comply with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which was revised in 2013.
Changes to VAWA
President Barack Obama reauthorized VAWA in 2013, creating new regulations for how colleges handle cases of gender-based violence. Under VAWA, colleges and universities are now required to report instances of stalking, dating violence and domestic violence.
VAWA also requires that colleges use preponderance of evidence as the standard for making decisions about sexual misconduct cases. This means that there must be sufficient evidence to show that it is more likely than not that a violation has occurred. Heida said Berry has always used preponderance of evidence as its standard.
The Act also allows for deputy Title IX officers, requires colleges to provide educational programs for new students and new employees and states that students should be informed of their resources for confidentiality, as well as resources both on and off campus.
Language changes
Berry’s current policy uses the term “sexual harassment and assault,” while the draft uses the term “sexual misconduct.”
Section III of the draft separately defines sexual harassment and sexual assault. According to the draft, “sexual harassment consists of, but is not limited to, unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, other unwelcome verbal or physical conduct or written communication of a sexual nature, and hostile or intimidating behavior motivated by another’s gender.”
Sexual assault, according to the draft, “includes attempted or completed rape, sexual touching of another person without his or her consent, and/or forcing a person who is unwilling or has diminished judgment or capacity to engage in sexual activity or consent to sexual activity.”
Under the current policy, someone who reports harassment or assault is called a “complainant,” while the person they are accusing is referred to as the “respondent.” The draft has replaced the term “complainant” with “reporter.”
Title IX officers
Berry’s sexual misconduct policy draft adds six deputy Title IX officers, who would receive training to inform students about their resources if they report sexual harassment or assault. Heida serves as the college’s Title IX coordinator and would continue in that role under the drafted policy.
Under the draft, the officers would be Andy Bressette, associate provost and dean of academic services; Mika Robinson, assistant director of athletics and senior woman administrator; Lindsey Taylor, assistant vice president for student affairs; and Gary Will, assistant vice president for campus safety and emergency response management.
Also, Berry’s human resources director and associate dean of students for residence life would be officers. The college is currently in the recruiting and hiring process for a human resources director. Taylor is currently associate dean of students for residence life but will begin her role as assistant vice president for student affairs in June. Her successor in residence life has not yet been chosen.
Robinson, who is also the head volleyball coach, said she is already familiar with Title IX in her role as senior woman administrator in athletics.
“The whole point of that position is to help ensure equal treatment of males and females within athletics and to make sure that our female athletes have a voice within administration so that their interests are being considered whenever decisions are being made,” she said.
She said having additional Title IX officers will likely increase the likelihood of students reporting harassment or assault.
“Especially when you’re talking about someone who’s been a victim of sexual assault or harassment, I think sometimes that can be a tough thing to seek help for,” Robinson said. “The more faces there are across campus that people know are there to help and to be able to report to, I just think it gives us less of a chance of things going unreported.”
Junior Olivia Paige, who started a student committee seeking reform for Berry’s sexual misconduct policy, said that she believes students would best be served by a Title IX coordinator who does not hold any other position on campus.
“If you have a high-level administrator being the Title IX coordinator … of course that individual wants what’s best for students,” Paige said. “But that kind of creates this bias, where they have this strong bias to protect the institution and to protect the institution’s image. As a result, that can lead them to maybe not explore these cases in a way that would best really benefit students … A lot of students interact with the people that they’re supposed to be reporting these things to in other ways.”
She said her committee has discussed this issue, and hiring a full-time Title IX coordinator may be the best option to address sexual misconduct.
“If we were to employ a Title IX coordinator, this would be a very good use of funding,” Paige said. “As it stands now, we’re looking into putting more funding into educational programs, which is good, but what we really feel is the best way to spend that money would be to put it into getting a Title IX coordinator who would be independent of all other positions on campus.”
Under Title IX, all colleges and universities that receive federal financial assistance must designate at least one employee as the Title IX coordinator. Many of Berry’s peer institutions have appointed an administrator to serve in that role. For example, Sewanee: The University of the South has their vice provost Nancy Berner as their Title IX coordinator, while Centre College has chosen their director of human resources and administrative services Kay L. Drake. However, some larger schools, including the University of Alabama and Wake Forest University, have full-time Title IX coordinators.
Confidentiality
The draft specifies where students can go to have confidential conversations about sexual harassment or assault they have experienced. Title IX officers are required to report an incident if they have knowledge of it. Berry faculty and supervisory staff are also “responsible employees” and would be required to report.
An addition to the draft also requires that Level 4 and 5 student work supervisors report an incident if they are knowledgeable.
Members of the Berry community who want to confidentially discuss an incident can seek help at the on-campus Counseling Center or the Sexual Assault Center of Northwest Georgia in Rome. Employees at these facilities are not required to report incidents of misconduct to the college.
The draft, as well as the current policy, suggests that reporters contact campus safety and gives reporters the option of contacting off-campus law enforcement as well.
Investigation and Resolution
According to the draft, “if it is determined that the allegations, if proven, would constitute a violation of this policy, the Title IX Coordinator will designate a lead investigator to conduct an investigation and prepare a report of the findings.”
The Title IX officers would be eligible to be investigators. The investigator would provide a recommendation at the conclusion of their work, and if the recommendation is accepted by the reporter and the respondent, the case is complete. If an agreement is not reached, the case, if it involved a student respondent, would go to the judicial board. The board would be provided with the report and the investigator’s recommendation.
“The student judicial board is made up of four faculty and staff and six students–two sophomores, two juniors and two seniors,” Heida said. “When you’re appointed as a sophomore, you’re appointed for the entirety of your Berry experience.”
Both the reporter and the respondent have the right to appeal the decision. The draft clarifies conditions for appeal. In order to appeal, there must be new information or evidence, reason to believe the sanction was inappropriate or the respondent did not receive a fair hearing.
Sanctions
The draft lists possible sanctions for sexual misconduct as “written warning or reprimand, probation, a change of position or assignment, mandatory counseling or educational program, suspension, termination, expulsion and/or educational sanctions deemed appropriate.”
Sanctions would “depend upon the nature and seriousness of the misconduct and any record of prior discipline.”
However, Paige, the student who started the committee seeking policy reform, said she would like to see sanctions clarified more.
“Right now what I’ve seen is a lack of trust in the system from students. I think really establishing that basis for sanctions, that guideline, would help establish more trust,” Paige said. “You don’t know what the possible sanctions would be … there’s no standard that everyone is held to if they commit this kind of sexual misconduct.”
Consent
The draft does not define consent, but Heida said student input is welcome on that topic.
“There’s been a suggestion that we define it as affirmative verbal consent. There’s some debate about that,” Heida said. “We’d like to welcome (students) into that conversation.”
Paige said a definition for consent would make the process clearer for everyone involved.
“The definition of consent would sort of give a consensus to the boards which hear these types of cases, to all students and to administration. The way it is now, it’s done on a very case-by-case basis and as a result there are a lot of holes,” she said. “By not really having a firm definition it opens up a lot of loose ends for people to get away with saying, ‘I assumed consent because of this.’”
Paige said not defining consent is unfair to both reporters and respondents.
“It really puts victims at a disadvantage because there is no standard that they have protecting them … it puts both the reporter and the respondent at a disadvantage because there’s not a clear definition,” she said. “It’s almost as if we’re expecting students to maintain this notion of consent and they’re supposed to abide by it, and we’re saying that you might be punished if you don’t abide by it.”
Centre College’s sexual misconduct policy does define consent. Their policy lists several components necessary for complete consent, including that consent “is not merely the absence of a verbally stated ‘no’” and “can only be given by someone in an unimpaired state of mind who is able to understand what is happening.”
Sewanee: The University of the South also discusses consent on their website, stating that “consent can be given by word or action, but non-verbal consent is not as clear as talking about what a person wants sexually and what a person doesn’t want.” Sewanee also clarifies that “consent to some form of sexual activity cannot be automatically taken as consent to any other form of sexual activity.”
Support throughout the process
Under the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act, students are permitted to have a support person of their choice to attend hearings with them. This person could be a fellow student, faculty or staff member, family member or attorney.
However, the support person cannot speak during proceedings and would only be there to support the reporter. Berry’s drafted policy reflects this provision.
If the reporter chose an attorney as their support person, the attorney would not be speaking for the reporter. Heida said campus hearings differ from legal proceedings because in campus hearings, students speak for themselves.
“The purpose of our process is to determine what the student’s status is at Berry College. The purpose of our process is not to determine criminal liability,” Heida said. “In the legal system, your attorney speaks for you. That’s not what happens on a college campus.”
Heida said private institutions are not required to follow traditional due process found in legal systems.
“One of the differences between private higher education and public higher education is many of the public institutions are required to follow due process the same way it happens in the legal system,” she said. “What private colleges are asked to do is have fair processes that are followed.”
Ongoing revisions
Heida said consultation will occur with SGA, the Faculty Assembly and the Staff Advisory Committee. Students can submit feedback to SGA, who will then compile the suggestions and submit them to administration.
The college’s current goal is to have the policy in place by the fall, Heida said. The Berry website will be updated with a page devoted to explaining the policy and the process, and education efforts such as posters in the restrooms will be updated.
Paige encouraged students to voice their opinions on the draft. She said the policy is “a work in progress.”
“It’s going to be a long way until we’re at a place where everyone is satisfied with the policy that we have,” she said.
While she believes the policy still needs revisions, Paige said the draft is “a step in the right direction.”