Rutgers President Scraps 2-Year Limit on Sexual-Misconduct Complaints

Rutgers University is doing away with a controversial policy that limited investigations of sexual-misconduct incidents that took place more than two years ago. On Wednesday, Robert L. Barchi, the university system’s president, sent a letter to the New Jersey institution’s governing boards: He was scrapping the “two-year limit.”

Rutgers U.

“Today I directed that the investigatory policies of OEE be updated immediately to remove the reference to a two-year period for pursuing investigations,” Barchi wrote, referring to the university’s Office of Employment Equity, which investigates sexual-misconduct complaints.

The order came hours after NJ Advance Media, a local news outlet, published an investigative report documenting the consequences of the policy.

The two-year rule was a recurring point of frustration for alleged victims at the college, according to NJ Advance Media. In one instance, one woman said a professor had touched her inappropriately on her first day as a graduate student, almost 20 years ago. When she reported the incident in February, spurred by the #MeToo movement, the Office of Employment Equity told her the allegations, from 1999 to 2009, were too old to investigate.

The professor, Stephen Eric Bronner, a political scientist, told the news outlet that he did not recall the incident, and that while he may have caused offense with past jokes, “this is not a Harvey Weinstein situation.”

Another woman said that she didn’t know how her own complaint about a 10-year-old encounter with Bronner had been resolved, and that a recent letter about it to the university had gone unanswered. Bronner said that he did not know about the complaint, and that he had told her at the time of the incident he was sorry if he “had done anything improper.”

No other comparable state college in New Jersey imposes any time limit on sexual-harassment claims, according to NJ Advance Media. And some universities across the country go quite far in exploring old claims: Ohio State University, for instance, opened a sexual-abuse investigation this year into allegations of decades-old misconduct against a wrestling-team physician who worked at the university from 1978 to 1998 and who died in 2005.

A Rutgers official told NJ Advance Media that other universities had similar policies, but didn’t specify which institutions. Case Western Reserve University and the University of Cincinnati both currently list policies that suggest filing complaints within two years of alleged misconduct.

Professors Requested Changes

In the last year, Rutgers has received 34 formal complaints, many of which are under investigation, and has placed 14 employees on paid leave, some of whom were accused of sexual harassment, a university spokeswoman said.

In past years, investigations seemed to disappear or founder with little explanation, women told NJ Advance Media. In another case, a former graduate student and a former colleague filed recent complaints against a newly hired professor at Rutgers. A second former graduate student contacted the university with her own allegations in March 2017, when she learned the professor was being considered for tenure. The former students say they don’t know if the university investigated their allegations. Meanwhile, the professor was awarded tenure.

In March, six professors in the political-science department, including Cynthia Daniels, its former chair, sent a letter to campus administrators asking for an overhaul of the university’s sexual-harassment policy, including an end to the two-year rule.

The university has said its policy was “guided by state law,” which applies a two-year statute of limitations to sexual-harassment claims. The college has made exceptions “when witnesses are available and evidence is obtainable,” university officials told NJ Advance Media. One said the college could be flexible and “thoughtful” in carrying out the policy, pointing to an unspecified number of investigations of three- to six-year-old complaints.

Barchi reiterated that point even when ending the rule. “Although the current practice has been to investigate claims that are more than two years old whenever possible,” he wrote, “the policy still cites a two-year limit, consistent with state law. This language is inconsistent with both our practices and our values, and we must send a clear message of our commitment to pursue any complaint of sexual harassment or misconduct for which evidence and witnesses remain.”

Rutgers will also form a committee on sexual-harassment prevention made up of students, faculty, and staff, headed by the senior vice president for academic affairs, following a recent report on sexual harassment by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. That report found that 58 percent of female faculty and staff members in the academy have experienced unwanted advances or sexual misconduct.

Early last month, Barchi opened a review to re-examine staffing and protocol at the Office of Employment Equity, whose caseload has increased in recent years. He expects the review to be finished by the end of October.

Follow Steven Johnson on Twitter at @stetyjohn, or email him at steve.johnson@chronicle.com.