Community colleges face special challenges in complying with federal law on how to handle sexual assaults. Still, the government’s advice on their responsibilities under Title IX should be treated “not as guidelines, but gospel.”
That’s the message that attendees at the American Association of Community Colleges’ annual meeting heard on Monday from Gregory A. Haile, general counsel and vice president for public policy and government affairs at Broward College. He was one of three speakers who urged leaders of two-year colleges to take their responsibilities for handling sexual-violence complaints seriously, even though the national focus on campus assaults has mostly been on four-year colleges.
Because most two-year colleges lack the dormitories and fraternities where many rapes occur, it’s easy to conclude that sexual assault is less of a problem for them.
But colleges are required to act on assaults that happen off campus, where most community-college students live and socialize.
They also are required to sign memoranda of understanding with local police departments, which can be tricky when a community college has multiple satellite campuses and storefronts scattered across a region.
Harper College, in Illinois, even has a “classroom on wheels.” If an assault happens on the mobile unit, a bus, “does it matter whether it’s on campus or off?” asked Laura Bennett, the college’s student-conduct officer. “Does it matter if it’s parked? These are the kinds of issues we’re struggling with.”
Two-year colleges may not have the extensive counseling services for assault victims that four-year colleges offer. Instead, they may need to connect the student with community support groups.
Then there’s the issue of sexual-violence education. Counselors at four-year colleges might be able to give a student a handbook with detailed guidance on how to report an assault and the procedures to expect, but it may not be so easy to adequately inform all community-college students, Ms. Bennett said. “Most of our students read at remedial levels, and they may not be able to comprehend that booklet,” she said. “English may not even be their first language.”
Speakers urged those in the audience to study the 52-point question and answer document the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights released in 2014.
It’s one of the many documents the national community-colleges association has posted on a webpage about Title IX resources.
Many of the issues community colleges are grappling with, including transgender rights and social-media harassment, are familiar to four-year colleges, as well.
Among them, Ms. Bennett said: “Explaining to campus police who get a call about someone using the ‘wrong’ bathroom what it means to be transgender,” or determining how to respond to a student who’s being harassed on Facebook and doesn’t want to face her harasser in class.
Administrators should also be careful in accommodating the needs of foreign students whose visas require that they maintain 12 hours of credit enrollment to be considered full time, Mr. Haile, of Broward College, said. “Say the victim is traumatized and wants to take time out,” he said. “You don’t want to be in a position where you think you’re helping a victim and they fall below the threshold of credits they need.”
‘Confidential’ Conversations
One of the toughest issues for faculty members and others who learn about assaults is knowing how to respond when a student asks for confidentiality. That can be problematic when the student indicates that the alleged perpetrator may have assaulted other students.
“Tell her we’ll do what we can to keep it confidential, but we have to do what we can to keep the campus safe,” Mr. Haile said. Try probing into why the student doesn’t want her name disclosed to the alleged perpetrator, he suggested. If she’s afraid of retaliation, reassure her that the college will protect her.
The Office for Civil Rights says that colleges aren’t required to investigate incidents that they hear about during public forums for sexual-assault survivors like Take Back the Night.
“You’re not required to, but you should” — at least in some cases, Mr. Haile said. If someone says that a student attacked five women on campus and a professor hears it and does nothing, “heaven forbid that that same person goes on to attack someone else,” he said.
Above all, don’t assume that any of the federal government’s “recommendations” can be ignored.
“I don’t care who calls it guidance,” Mr. Haile said. “It is gospel. You absolutely have to treat it as gospel.”
Many Title IX compliance guidelines are written with four-year colleges in mind, said Jim Hermes, associate vice president for government relations for the community-colleges association. Advocates for two-year colleges often struggle to communicate how the ramifications for their campuses are different, he added.
At some community colleges, high-school-age dual-enrollment students make up a third of the student body. Privacy issues play out differently in cases where parents have to be notified.
Only a handful of the federal sexual-violence cases being investigated for possible Title IX violations involve community colleges, according to The Chronicle’s Title IX tracker.
But that doesn’t mean the federal government isn’t watching.
Presidents need to hold firm when others argue that Title IX compliance is just another unfunded mandate thrust on colleges that can’t afford to comply, said Beverly Walker-Griffea, president of Mott Community College, in Michigan. “People want to know that we, as CEOs, know what’s going on and that we’re no longer willing to be bystanders.”
Even though many assaults happen off campus, she said, “there’s a pretty good chance there are survivors on my campus and a pretty good chance that the person who assaulted her is on our campus.”
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.
