Representatives from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. Department of Education will be on campus through tomorrow hosting public meetings and private office hours with students, faculty and staff to assess and gather information about the University’s compliance with Title IX.
A total of four students and one faculty member attended the general session on Tuesday. Each person was asked to maintain confidentiality about the issues discussed in the room. The representatives, who declined to be quoted for this article, presented attendees with a statement regarding this confidentiality.
“A few ground rules: We understand that we will be discussing very sensitive issues,” the statement read. “There are no right or wrong answers to our questions. It is very important that we hear your comments, whether they are positive or negative.”
The OCR representatives launched into a conversation about the current status of sexual assault policy and prevention on campus, asking students for their opinions on a variety of relevant issues.
In a phone interview, a spokesperson from the Department of Education talked about why OCR representatives travelled to campus to speak to students and faculty.
“Hopkins is one of 100 institutions that are currently under investigation by the Office of Civil Rights,” the spokesperson said. “As part of our investigations, we often conduct site visits that include things like public meetings or private office hours. We often conduct meetings on campus to get a sense of the climate and concerns of students at particular institutions. We also request data from schools. That’s one tool we use to determine whether a school is in compliance with the civil rights laws that we enforce. We enforce laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of rapes or sexual assaults.”
Jason Plush, a Student Government Association (SGA) junior class senator and the current president of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity (Beta), said that he was concerned by the fact that the University is under federal investigation.
“I think it’s pretty telling about the problems we’re starting to find between the administration and the students. I think there’s a disconnect between policy and how well at this time they articulate what’s in our current policy,” Plush said. “I also think it’s very telling that policy at this time is very fragmented. I think it’s pretty telling that the comprehensive [goals] of the policy are to prevent what’s already happened. This signifies the lack of understanding among the student body of what the policy actually is and what [needs to be done] if someone actually has a problem. People don’t know where to turn.”
Plush said that the fact that students do not know who they can turn to in the administration in the event of sexual violence is of grave concern. He also said that a there is a lack of advertising for resources among freshman and that there needs to be a greater emphasis on helpful resources during Orientation Week.
“During that sexual assault prevention program during orientation, maybe a list of resources could come at the end. I think [advertising] could go a long distance,” Plush said.
Students also discussed administrative handling of recent sexual assault cases on campus in the meeting. Plush offered his opinion on how effective the administration has been in terms of giving punishments and offering rehabilitative programs to students to help cut down on some of the factors — such as overcrowding and drinking at fraternity parties — that have been found to make students more vulnerable to sexual assault.
Plush said that his involvement in a fraternity has not impacted his viewpoint in any way.
“I definitely think I share these viewpoints with very concerned students, especially serving on SGA — these are worries that have been brought to our attention,” Plush said. “I wouldn’t say that because I’m the head of a Greek organization that this affects my viewpoint in any way. As a school, our students deserve to be protected by policies that are clear.”
Plush said he believed that the University’s response to the sexual assault at Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) on Nov. 1 was not appropriate. SAE will be suspended through the end of 2015 and will be on probation through the end of 2016.
“I don’t think the situation with SAE was handled in the best way possible,” Plush said. “I think they were punished for the wrong reasons. [The email sent out by the University] felt very reactionary instead of being proactive in the situation. The brothers handled the situation in the best way possible. I don’t think the punishment aligned with the actions of the brothers.”
Freshmen Sarah Zappone and John Hughes, who also attended the OCR meeting, explained their viewpoints on several issues including administrative policy and transparency.
Zappone, an SGA freshman class senator, wrote in an email to The News-Letter that the University can make students feel safer by adjusting their approach in combating sexual violence and student alcohol abuse.
“We need to refocus our attitude surrounding sexual violence and alcohol abuse to be proactive over reactive,” Zappone wrote. “We can best create a safe campus environment if given the resources to do so. No one should feel hesitant calling [The Hopkins Emergency Response Organization (HERO)] for a peer or for themselves in fear of retribution or disciplinary reprisal. We need to break the barrier.”
Hughes said he thinks the OCR visit might benefit Hopkins as a whole.
“I think even if there were not particular instances to indict Hopkins individually, a Title IX investigation would address underlying issues with how almost all universities handle the issue of sexual assault. Having a Title IX investigation would address having those issues. I don’t think that the current approach is adequate. I don’t think it’s proactive enough or transparent enough to make students feel safe and make students feel comfortable actually reporting incidents,” Hughes said. “I think the fact that they came and talked to students is extremely important because bureaucratic investigations analyze policy, but when you’re actually talking to students, faculty and staff, you’re getting the end result of that — what actually happened due to the policies and implementations in place.”
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