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College recommends changes to Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Policy

By Brian Sobotko ’16

Last week, the Title IX Task Force, formed by President Joan Hinde Stewart in May, released its recommended changes to Hamilton’s Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Policy. Senior Associate Dean of Students for Strategic Initiatives and Title IX Coordinator Meredith Harper Bonham announced the draft recommendations via an all-campus email.

The Task Force recommends splitting the current Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Policy into two distinct policies and creating “a more robust investigative process” centered around an investigative team composed of an external investigator and a trained member of the Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Board (HSMB). The group also proposes reconstituting the HSMB Hearing Committee as a Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Review Panel (HSMRP). This change would eliminate the current formal hearing process, ensuring that students will not be forced to tell their stories both during the investigation and the hearing. The HSMRP, composed of three members of the HSMB, would review the Investigation Team’s report and recommend a decision and sanction to the relevant senior staff member. For cases involving students, that senior staff member would be Dean of Students Nancy Thompson.

Members of the community had the opportunity to discuss the proposed changes at a forum last Friday, Sept. 5. The forum was sparsely attended by about 10 students but included many senior-level campus representatives, including Stewart, Thompson, Dean of Faculty Patrick Reynolds and Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Monica Inzer. In all, between 40-50 people attended including many faculty members.

In April 2011, the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published a “Dear Colleague” letter explaining a school’s responsibility to respond effectively to sexual violence against students. Last April, over three years later, OCR published a list of questions and answers to provide institutions more guidance. Additionally, the 2013 Campus SaVE Act (Sexual Violence Elimination Act) and the April 2014 “Not Alone” White House Report provided further guidelines. These federal actions also exist in the context of a national conversation and awareness of sexual assault on college campuses. Last May, OCR released a list of higher education institutions under investigation for Title IX violations. These schools included fellow NESCAC schools Amherst and Tufts. Then, this July, The New York Times published a scathing front-page article regarding fellow New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium school Hobart and William Smith’s handling of a sexual assault complaint.

“I wanted to assure compliance and that our policies are effective,” Stewart explained at the forum.

The new policies represent a combination of changes the Task Force devised and those changes that are reactions to the clarifications in federal law. The group, chaired by Harper Bonham, also included Thompson, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and 2014-15 HSMB Chair Vivyan Adair, Associate Dean of Students for Academics and Professor of Government Steve Orvis, Assistant Director of Counseling David Walden and Lea Haber Kuck ’87 an attorney and trustee. The group looked to successful policies at peer institutions and they were particularly impressed with the process at Middlebury.

Harper Bonham explained that Middlebury’s policy is “reflected to some extent in our revisions” and called it a “really solid model.” The most significant change to the policy, the changes to the investigative process and elimination of the hearing, came from conversations with counterparts at Middlebury. Harper Bonham spoke confidently about these changes, which bolster the investigative process, admitting that the current process, and especially the hearing component, can be traumatizing for students. She again credited Middlebury, calling them “trailblazers” for devising a process that emphasizes fairness and compassion.

Representatives from SAVES (Sexual Assault and Violence Education and Support) commend the new process.

“Removing the hearing process is a huge step in the right direction,” Chloe Shanklin ’16 (SAVES Chair), Sally Bourdon ’15 and Cori Smith ’17 (Vice Chair) told The Spectator via email. “Now both parties have a safer space enabling them to better communicate their testimony, as well as the opportunity to review the entire statement, without any new surprises at the hearing.”

School officials are not thrilled with all the changes. The school will revise the composition of the HSMB so that only full-time employees and faculty with associate professor rank or above may serve. In accordance with federal guidelines, students will no longer serve on the HSMB. This change is something Harper Bonham said she had “mixed feelings” about.

“I have had fantastic experiences working with student HSMB members,” Harper Bonham explained, adding that many “have served with great discretion and intelligence.”

Harper Bonham expressed more concern over a change in federal law that will allow students to have an attorney as an advisor. The reservations with the policy stem not only from concerns over equity but also that these hearings are designed to be not legal proceedings. The HSMB, in accordance with federal guidelines outlined in the Dear Colleague letter, uses a “preponderance of the evidence standard,” also referred to as a “more likely than not standard.” This standard sets the burden of proof significantly lower than a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard used in criminal proceedings.

“At Hamilton, being a member of this community is not a right, it is a privilege,” Harper Bonham explained.

“The administration should provide resources for legal advocacy groups that could help with potential wealth disparity between the two involved parties,” representatives from SAVES said, highlighting a dilemma school officials have with the federal guidelines.

In addition to these changes to the policy, school officials emphasize education and prevention policies. The group referenced an annual survey, administered to students that provides data. Walden called it “a really robust survey for the last six years that we can be proud of.” This anonymous survey receives responses from between 40-50 percent of students on average each year. The survey asks about six different categories of sexual harassment: visual/verbal harassment, exposure of sexual nature, stalking, physical violence when sexual advances are refused, touching/grabbing of the body and non-consensual penetration (the legal definition of rape).

Overall, 25-30 percent of students experience some form of sexual harassment every year. The vast majority of those incidents are visual/verbal harassment, exposure and touching/grabbing. Around three percent of students are raped each year. As Walden explained, that amounts to roughly 60 students over the 32 weeks students are on campus.
In addition to information sessions during orientation where school officials share this information, all first-years are required to attend Speak About It, a performance-based presentation composed of skits and dialogue designed to educate about consent.

Representatives from SAVES would like to see more education programs exist consistently throughout one’s time at Hamilton.

“The most education in terms of sexual assault prevention is given to the first-year students.  While it important that students are aware as soon as they arrive, the administration should be making more of an effort to educate upperclassmen as well,” the advocates explained.

“We work really diligently to educate the first-year class before they step on campus about consent and resources,” Harper Bonham said. “There is more we can do to remind upper-class students. We will be looking at that population on how to create a culture on our campus that doesn’t allow those types of acts to occur.”

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