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| FILE - This April 10, 2014 file photo shows Education Secretary Arne Duncan speaking in New York. Fifty-five colleges and universities _ big and small, public and private _ are being investigated over their handling of sexual abuse complaints, the Education Department revealed Thursday. Duncan said there had been “lots of internal debate” about whether to release the list but that he believes in transparency; he said the more the country is talking about the problem of sexual assault, the better. Duncan said there is “absolutely zero presumption” of guilt in his mind for schools being investigated. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- From huge state universities to small colleges and the Ivy
League, 55 schools across America are facing federal investigation for
the way they handle sexual abuse allegations by their students.
For
the first time, the Education Department revealed its list of colleges
under investigation on Thursday - though no details of the complaints -
as the Obama administration sought to bring more openness to the issue
of sexual violence on and around the nation's campuses.
The
schools range from public universities, including Ohio State, the
University of California, Berkeley and Arizona State, to private schools
including Knox College in Illinois, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania
and Catholic University of America in the District of Columbia. Ivy
League schools including Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth are also on
the list.
The government emphasized the list
was about investigations of complaints, not judgments. Education
Secretary Arne Duncan said there was "absolutely zero presumption" of
guilt.
Few details of individual cases are
known, but some are. One, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor,
involves allegations of mishandling of a matter involving a football
player. The investigation began after federal authorities received
complaints related to the expulsion of Brendan Gibbons, a former
placekicker.
A student group examined the
school's student sexual misconduct policy and last month determined the
university failed to explain a yearslong delay between the alleged
incident and Gibbons' expulsion in December. Spokesman Rick Fitzgerald
says the university has been "fully cooperating."
Schools
on the list, for the most part, were unwilling to talk about specific
incidents but said they have been working with the federal department to
be more responsive to student complaints.
"We
are hopeful at the end of this there will be a resolution that will
strengthen our internal processes and result in a safer community," said
Dartmouth spokesman Justin Anderson. "There's always something we can
learn and ways to get better."
Some of the
investigations go as far back as 2010. Three universities - Michigan
State, Wittenberg in Ohio and Southern Methodist in Texas - face more
than one.
The Obama administration's effort to bring more attention to the issue of sexual assaults is not limited to colleges.
Separately
on Thursday, the Pentagon said that reports of assaults by members of
the military have risen 50 percent since the beginning of a campaign to
persuade more victims to come forward. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
said he is ordering six initiatives to deal with sexual assaults,
including efforts to get more male victims to speak up.
The
college investigations are done under Title IX of a U.S. law, which
prohibits gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funds.
It is the same law that guarantees girls and women equal access to
sports, but it also regulates institutions' handling of sexual violence
and increasingly is being used by victims who say their schools failed
to protect them.
The agency previously would confirm such Title IX investigations when asked, but students and others were often unaware of them.
Duncan said there had been "lots of internal debate" about whether to release the list but that transparency is important.
"No
one probably loves to have their name on that list," Duncan said during
a White House briefing. "But we'll investigate; we'll go where the
facts are. And where they have done everything perfectly, we'll be very
loud and clear that they've done everything perfectly."
The
department can withhold federal funding from a school that doesn't
comply with the law, but it so far has not used that power and instead
has negotiated voluntary resolutions for violators.
About half of all states have schools under investigation.
Massachusetts has six, including Harvard College.
Harvard
students filed formal complaints in late March to the department saying
the college did not respond promptly to reports of sexual violence,
that students were subjected to a sexually hostile environment, and that
in some cases assault victims were forced to live in the same residence
buildings as their alleged assailants.
"Harvard
has taken a number of steps to foster prevention efforts and to support
students who have experienced sexual misconduct," spokesman Jeff Neal
said. They include appointing a Title IX officer to review policies and
procedures.
Pennsylvania had five schools listed. California, Colorado and New York each had four.
Some
investigations were prompted by complaints directly to the federal
department; others were initiated by the department following compliance
reviews triggered by other factors, such as news stories or information
from parents or an advocacy group, the department said. Some schools
wanted to note what triggered the investigation.
Indiana
University-Bloomington, for example, said the federal department had
confirmed that it didn't receive any complaints against the school "that
would have triggered an investigation."
Similarly,
the University of Massachusetts-Amherst also said it was being
investigated under a standard compliance review and not because of any
specific complaints.
At Sarah Lawrence
College, a heavily female school on the list, a spokeswoman said the
college has taken steps that include putting up posters advising
students of what to do if they are sexually assaulted and requiring a
"consent and respect online" course for new students starting this
summer.
While being on the list might be
difficult for schools, Duncan said, it pales in comparison to the
difficulty and trauma borne by sexual assault victims on American
college campuses.
"In terms of what's morally
right there, the moral compass, whatever we can do to have fewer young
women and young men having to go through these types of horrific
incidents, we want to do that," Duncan said.
The
White House has said that as many as 1 in 5 female college students is
assaulted. President Barack Obama has appointed a task force of Cabinet
members to review the issue after hearing complaints about poor
treatment of campus rape victims and the hidden nature of such crimes.
The
task force's report, released just two days earlier, announced the
creation of a website, notalone.gov, offering resources for victims and
information about past enforcement actions on campuses. The task force
also made a wide range of recommendations to schools, such as
identifying confidential victims' advocates and conducting surveys to
better gauge the frequency of sexual assault on campuses.
The
department publicized guidance on Title IX's sexual assault provisions
in 2011, and complaints by students have since increased. Complaints,
however, don't always lead to an investigation.
Sens.
Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., have said
non-compliance under the law is "far too common." They say a lack of
federal resources is partly to blame for that, and they've sought more
money to ensure timely and proper investigations.
In
a statement Thursday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., praised the
release of the list but said the department needs to "thoroughly and
rapidly" investigate the complaints.
Another
law that campus sexual assault cases fall under is the Clery Act, which
requires colleges and universities to report crime statistics on or near
their campuses. It also requires schools to develop prevention policies
and ensure victims' basic rights. Investigations under this law are not
included in the list that was released.
