Title IX is an imperative campus resource, intended to procure a safer environment for all Millikin students. However, a lack of knowledge about Title IX has fostered, in turn, a lack of trust in its procedures.
Millikin’s Title IX team has found themselves working harder than ever to clear up misconceptions about the Title IX process. It is high time for the barriers between the Title IX office and the student body to be broken.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 1 in 5 female-identifying students will experience sexual assault or harassment during their college career. As few as 10% of these students choose to make a report.
In hopes of alleviating the fear associated with making a Title IX report, our Title IX team has dedicated themselves to demystifying their processes and becoming a more accessible resource.
Brittany Gates is a Title IX specialist at Institutional Compliance Solutions (ICS) in Tennessee. She is hired through ICS to assist Millikin’s Title IX team. When it comes to the gap between campus Title IX offenses and actual reports, Gates has a few theories.
“Students may be afraid they’re going to get in trouble. Students may be afraid they’re not going to be believed,” she said. “Students may be afraid that something is going to happen next that they don’t want to happen. They conflate the Title IX process with law enforcement, which are two separate things.”
It’s easy to associate an increase in reports with an unsafe campus environment. For the Title IX office, this is not always the case.
“We want people to report,” Gates said. “That lets us know that students understand that this office can be a resource for them. If students are experiencing sexual harassment, we want to know about it, we want them to be okay, and we want to do what we can to protect them.”
There are several provisions in place to ensure students feel supported and comfortable during the Title IX reporting process. Gates and Todd Ray, Chief Human Resources Officer at Millikin and a member of the Title IX committee, described the process in detail.
“When we become aware of a report, one of us reaches out to the student as soon as we can, and the most important thing is to make sure they’re safe,” Ray said. “So, first, are there any supportive measures that we can provide you?”
These measures look different for each report. Sometimes, students don’t want extensive action to be taken.
“If a student came to me and said, ‘Something happened, I don’t want to talk about it, but I need some help,’ we would say, ‘okay,’ and get them the help they need,” Gates said. “For me, it’s all about support.”
After the safety of all parties is guaranteed, the team, in collaboration with the complainant (the student subjected to the reported behavior), may decide to move forward and investigate the report.
“We typically will follow up and talk to the complainant,” Ray said. “That’s when you find out the details and you have to decide, is it a Title IX concern or a Student Conduct concern.”
The differentiation between what is handled by Title IX and what is handled by Student Conduct is decided by federal-level regulations regarding Title IX.
“The regulations guide the type of conduct that falls under the Title IX process,” Gates said. “And there’s three big buckets of behavior covered by Title IX.”
These “buckets” begin with quid pro quo sexual harassment, which is typically an authority figure conditioning a benefit in exchange for unwanted sexual conduct.
“It’s someone saying, ‘I’ll give you an A on this paper, if you give me this unwanted sexual favor,’ right?” Gates said. “It’s something that can only happen in a position of power.”
The second “bucket” is referred to as a hostile environment.
“It is severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive conduct that impacts someone’s access to their education,” Gates said.
Bucket three is what they call the “big four.” The big four include sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking.
This means some concerns brought to the Title IX office that do not fall under these three sections have to be redirected. Just because something is not classified as Title IX does not mean it will not be dealt with.
“On campus, you have multiple pathways to achieve outcomes,” Gates said. “Sometimes we must dismiss something as Title IX, but not because we are dismissing it as a concerning behavior that happened on campus.”
It is a common misconception that Title IX will be able to accomplish more than other campus procedures. In reality, there are many equally effective avenues to make sure students are safe.
“A lot of the time, Title IX is measured as more severe than the Student Code of Conduct,” Gates said. “The way I explain it is, the end of all these procedures have the same outcome and potential for discipline.”
Once the report has been officially classified under Title IX, the Title IX committee and the complainant explore three different pathways: support only, informal action, and formal investigation.
“We follow the lead of the complainant,” Gates said. “A support-only option would be a student saying ‘I just want distance, but I don’t want formal action.’”
A support-only option warrants action such as a no-contact order, schedule changes, safe rides through campus, or an independent study with a professor.
Informal action or formal investigation will both require a signed formal complaint, officially requesting additional action from the university. However, there are still key differences between the two.
“Informal action is something that both parties must agree on,” Gates said. “It’s usually when you hear a complainant say, ‘I just want them to learn from this, or I just want them to get better.’”
This opens doors to required training, meetings, or mentorship opportunities for the respondent (the respondent being the party who exercised the alleged conduct). The formal investigation process takes the report in a different direction.
“When the formal investigation process is initiated, it will determine whether the respondent is found responsible,” Gates said. “If found responsible, they’re subject to disciplinary outcome.”
All in all, Millikin’s Title IX office is not just meant to be an accessible resource for Millikin’s students, but a safe space.
“At the heart of our policies are support and care,” Gates said. “We want students to find the university to be a safe space, and if they don’t feel safe, we need to know about it.”
Help is available.
Make an anonymous report: [email protected]
Call the Campus Conduct Hotline: (866) 943-5787
