What Exactly Does the Education Dept. Say Michigan State Did Wrong?

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights said on Tuesday that a “sexually hostile environment” had existed at Michigan State University for some students and employees during a federal investigation into sexual-assault complaints there. And the way the university handled reports of sexual assaults, the office said, “may have contributed to a continuation of this sexually hostile environment.”

But at the heart of the department’s 42-page letter outlining its findings is an illustration of just how difficult it can be for colleges to comply with the beefed-up interpretation of the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX. That demonstration comes in the form of the two cases that sparked the investigation.

Here’s a breakdown of the cases, as told by the Office for Civil Rights:

Student A

What happened: The female student identified as Student A said she was sexually assaulted by two male students in the fall of 2010. She reported the incident to the campus police and also reported it to the university at the hospital, where officials gave her information about counseling services and the campus judicial system used to handle such cases.

What the university did: The next day, university officials met with the two accused students, telling them to avoid social gatherings and not to contact Student A. Meanwhile, the university arranged to move the students into a different dormitory.

Days after Student A reported the assault, the county prosecutor’s office announced it would not press charges against the accused students. Student A then told Michigan State she had decided not to file a sexual-harassment complaint with the university, saying she was mainly concerned about running into the men in their residence hall (they’d been reassigned by this point). She got a court to grant her personal-protection orders forbidding the two male students to follow her or to communicate with her, among other things. University staff members met with the male students to make sure they understood what they were allowed to do.

After all that, university officials considered the matter closed.

But when the Office for Civil Rights got wind of media reports about the alleged assault, it reached out to Michigan State and “offered technical assistance.” Soon after, the university began an outside Title IX investigation to determine if the alleged assault had violated its sexual-harassment policies, even though the student had still not filed a formal complaint.

While that investigation was going on, Student A ran into the male students on the campus more than once, and complained that their failure to actively avoid her constituted violations of the court orders she had obtained. In one instance, she saw them studying with a tutor in an academic building and sat in sight of them for 30 minutes. When they left, they walked right past her. After she reported the episode to the university, it decided to confine the students to a study area separate from Student A’s, and made them use a different entrance from the rest of the students. (In its letter, the Office for Civil Rights praises the university for taking that step.)

The outside investigator finished work at the end of 2010, and determined that there was not enough evidence to suggest the university’s harassment policy had been violated. The Office for Civil Rights agreed, saying in Tuesday’s letter that the investigation was “thorough and adequate” and that evidence did not support the claim that Student A had been subjected to unwelcome sexual conduct.

What OCR says the university did wrong: Because its Title IX policies at the time required an immediate investigation only if the alleged victim requested one, Michigan State did not respond to her report promptly enough.

Student B

What happened: Student B said she was sexually assaulted by a male student in a fraternity house in the fall of 2012. Though she didn’t initially report it, the university’s Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives learned about it soon after and reached out to her with offers of help. She declined its offers. She did end up filing a complaint with the office in February 2013.

What the university did: The Title IX investigator sent multiple emails to the accused student over several months, but he didn’t respond. The investigator’s finished report concluded that the evidence suggested an assault had occurred, primarily because the accused student hadn’t offered another account to dispute Student B’s assertions. The investigator sent the report to the accused student, who responded that he had not seen the earlier emails because he thought they were spam (the subject lines, he said, were just “Office of Inclusion.”) The next day, he emailed the investigator again to say that he had no comment on the incident but that he was not guilty.

The case then went before the student judicial system. But because the university has trouble recruiting enough qualified members for the system’s panels, a hearing of the case did not happen until November 2013. The accused student argued that the investigator’s findings should be thrown out because the investigator didn’t consider his side of the story, but he admitted he had declined to provide his version of events (on the advice of counsel, he said). A panel upheld the investigator’s conclusion and said the student should be permanently expelled.

Two months and two appeals later, the ruling was upheld and the student was expelled.

What OCR says the university did wrong: It did not resolve the complaint promptly enough, in large part because of the accused student’s failure to respond to the Title IX investigator’s emails. In addition, a lack of trained students for the grievance panel and the student’s rights to appeal constituted other unacceptable delays. The investigation, however, was “thorough, impartial, and equitable.”