Title IX: A Survey for Institutions of Higher Education2016 Results

Title IX Survey Gathering data on the impact of Title IX on campuses

● Overview and Participant Profile

● Insights

● Top 3 Challenges of Managing a Title IX Investigation

● Suggestions for Next Year’s Survey

● Conclusions

Overview and participant profile

HR Acuity® conducted its inaugural Title IX survey to gauge the impact that Title IX investigations are having on campuses. The survey explores what institutions are spending on Title IX investigations, technology platforms campuses are using to document and track allegations and what the Title IX process looks like at different colleges and universities.

● 70% of respondents are Title IX Coordinators/Deputy Coordinators and 30% are Human Resource practitioners

● 46% of participating institutions are a public college or university and 39% are private. The remainder is composed of university systems and for-profit institutions.

● 38% had 10,000 to 25,000 full-time students and another 30% had 25,000+. The remaining third had less than 10,000 full-time students.

INSIGHTS

Where the Title IX Coordinator position resides

In just over 60% of participating Institutions, the role of Title IX Coordinator resides in the office of Diversity/Equity/Affirmative Action.

Departments/offices involved when a Title IX grievance is filed

In two-thirds of institutions, the grievance is initially filed somewhere other than with the department where the Title IX Coordinator resides. For example, when the Title IX Coordinator resided in human resources (HR), some of the intake points for a Title IX grievance in the survey included: ● Student Affairs● Dean of Students● Residential Life● Staff or faculty member● Point of student contact● Public Safety

Institutions have vastly different grievance process chronologies(5 chronologies from different campuses are outlined for comparison)

Chronology1

Chronology2

Chronology3

Chronology4

Chronology5

● Dean of Students● University Police● Victims

Advocates● EEO/Title IX● Psychological

Services● Student

Accountability/ HR/Dean

● General Counsel

● Residential Life, Public Safety or Faculty/Staff member

● Title IX Coordinator

● Investigator● Sexual

Misconduct Hearing Panel

● Appeal Proceeding, if applicable

● Student Rights & Responsibilities

● Title IX Coordinator

● Investigator● Legal● Title IX

Coordinator for review

● Title IX or Office of Equity & Inclusion

● Women’s Resource Center

● Dean of Student Life

● Review by Title IX Coordinator

● Appeal, if applicable

● Title IX Coordinator

● HR● Investigators● General counsel,

if needed● AVP for Student

Affairs

Institutions are being financially impacted by Title IX Investigations

Half of responding institutions do not track annual spend. Fifteen percent of participants spent over $25,000 annually.

Technology used to track Title IX allegations is often different for students and faculty/staff

In almost 40% of institutions, no technology is used. One-third of respondents use one system and another one-third use separate systems.

Title IX technology in use

● Approximately 50% use internal systems [Excel, Access or Dropbox]

● Approximately 50% outsource proprietary software

Title IX metrics are tracked by institutions for compliance and documentation purposes

Primary Metric

70% currently track by the number of complaints

Other Metrics

Length of investigation | Number resolved informally/formally | Type of allegation/infraction/protected class

Number of Disciplinary Actions | Findings | Number of Terminations | Number of Appeals

Whether Complainant participated | Interim measures | Policy violations/sanctions

Additional metrics that respondents would find helpful

● Numbers related to the cost of a grievance

● Root cause

● How complainant decided to report and to whom

● Resources accessed

● What types of education related to these issues had parties been exposed to prior to incident

● From what areas of university are we not getting disclosures

● Demographics

● What software can be used for tracking vs. manual entry into a spreadsheet: when, where,

affiliation, type of allegation (assault, stalking, harassment)

TOP 3 CHALLENGES of managing a Title IX Investigation

● Time and resources available

● Training, compliance and managing processes

● Conducting investigations with multiple parties involved: complainant, witnesses, employees

“No one is ever happy with a Title IX Investigation.”

Suggestions for next year’s survey

Feedback from respondents included:

● Have more open-ended responses● Collect the number of full-time investigators● Ask job title and administrator level assigned to a Title IX Coordinator● Find out the operational budget assigned to Title IX Coordinator per fiscal year● Determine rationale used by universities as to why their Title IX Coordinator

investigates cases in addition to other duties (e.g., due to small student population, leader of a team of investigators)

● Gather insight on investigation methods● Ask what other schools are doing? Develop a resource manual of contacts and

ideas.

Conclusions

● Managing Title IX investigations is a complex area and one which absorbs time and resources. From the varied responses in the survey, there were no consistent best practices.

● The costs related to managing the Title IX grievance process are burdensome; however, many institutions are not tracking them.

● A consistent process and employee training in the investigative process would better enable institutions to compare data and improve processes.

● Web-based technology will enable institutions to mitigate Title IX risks and deliver fair outcomes by acting as a repository for multiple data inputs and standardizing documentation and processes.

Thank you to all of our participating institutions.