This move would pull Dartmouth into a network of institutions that has provided logistical and emotional support for complainants, and comes on the heels of a social media campaign by Andrea Pino, one of the students who spearheaded a Title IX complaint against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, that links Title IX rights to Dartmouth students and survivors.
A landmark statute of the 1972 Education Amendments, Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. This discrimination includes sexual violence as well as the presence of a hostile environment caused by harassment.
On April 18, the Occidental Sexual Assault Coalition submitted a 250-page complaint, and around 150 pages of appendices, to the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The federal office announced last Wednesday that it would investigate the complaint.
Students at Swarthmore have filed a Clery Act complaint against the school and plan to file a Title IX complaint by graduation on June 2, said rising junior Mia Ferguson, who is involved in both cases. The Clery Act., signed in 1990, requires institutions of higher education to maintain and disclose information regarding campus crime.
The two institutions joined the recent whirlwind of Title IX complaints across the nation that have pushed sexual assault and hostile climate issues into the national spotlight. From Chapel Hill to Amherst College, students have formed social media campaigns and personal networks to aid one another in logistical details and ease the emotional burden of the filing process.
Ferguson said she expects Dartmouth to file a complaint "very shortly" given increased social media activity, including a circulated image of the text "Title IX protects all students: #StandWithDartmouth." She added that national networking has made for easier filing.
"Student experiences at Dartmouth indicate hostility," Ferguson said. "Everything that goes under the Title IX umbrella, all that discrimination and hatred, has been occurring very explicitly at Dartmouth."
Ferguson filed a Clery Act complaint with Hope Brinn, a Swarthmore rising junior, in April. Their complaint alleged that Swarthmore "systematically discouraged" sexual assault victims from using the college judicial system and reporting incidents to local law enforcement. They also alleged that Swarthmore underreports incidences of sexual assault, a violation of the Clery Act.
Ferguson contacted Annie Clark, a 2011 Chapel Hill graduate, and Pino, a rising senior at Chapel Hill, for support in filing. Clark and Pino, both of whom have received widespread media attention, led the filing of a complaint against the university earlier this year.
A May 8 post on the Oxy Sexual Assault Coalition blog connects Dartmouth with Chapel Hill, Amherst, Yale University, the University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley in an expanding national network that is working to create a "safe learning experience free from sexual violence."
Coalition founder and Occidental senior Audrey Logan said that given the vitriolic response to the College's Dimensions protests and students' subsequent contact with groups like the coalition, she expects a complaint to be filed against Dartmouth shortly.
"It seems like there are people on Dartmouth's campus that are ready to make changes," she said. "Federal investigation can be a catalyst for that."
Pino came to Dartmouth last weekend to speak with students who attended a campus symposium on sexual assault, student activism and community action. Though she declined to comment on whether she expected Dartmouth students to file a complaint, Pino compared the College to Yale, where 16 students came forward to file a Title IX complaint in the spring of 2011.
Pino said she began to understand more fully the significance of the College's small campus after visiting Hanover, as sexual violence victims are more likely to see their perpetrators. She recognized factors that contribute to a hostile campus climate, which would violate Title IX.
Through her work with student activists at other universities, however, it became clear that these trends can be traced across other campuses.
"Dartmouth may be an Ivy and UNC-CH may be a public school, but they have the same problems," she said.
On May 1, Pino tweeted "A school with pervasive sexual assault, racism and homophobia is in violation of Title IX #standwithDartmouth." The attached image features red text against a green background that reads "Title IX protects all students," followed by the same hashtag.
Hailey Jures, a rising Occidental senior and an Oxy Sexual Assault Coalition member, said a Dartmouth complaint would not surprise her, as that sexual violence has recently grown in national prominence.
When mobilizing her own complaint at Chapel Hill, Pino also sought the advice of Amherst senior Dana Bolger, the editor of the college's online magazine "It Happens Here," which chronicles incidents of sexual violence. Bolger has been in contact with a Dartmouth student, though she declined to say whether she expected Dartmouth students to file a Title IX complaint.
"It's definitely Dartmouth's time," Pino said. "The Real Talk movement is just one factor of what's going on at Dartmouth. There's not only the hazing culture and the pervasive homophobia and racism, but there's also a culture of hostility and violence."
A TIPPING POINT'
In April 2011, the Department of Education published a "Dear Colleague" letter to universities that clarified the role of Title IX in sexual harassment of students.
Once a school is aware of possible sexual violence, it must take prompt, effective steps to end the threat, prevent its recurrence and address its effects. This applies regardless of whether the violence is the subject of a criminal investigation.
An institution must make efforts to protect the complainant before the result of the investigation and must provide a grievance procedure for filing complaints of sex discrimination, including sexual violence. Title IX prohibits hostile campus climates, and "requires the school to take immediate action to eliminate the harassment, prevent its recurrence and address its effects."
Since the early 2000s, most Title IX litigation has been related to sexual harassment and sexual assault, not discrimination in athletics, said Erin Buzuvis, a professor at the Western New England University School of Law and co-founder of Title IX Blog, which chronicles cases and news on Title IX.
Based on the momentum of recent complaints, Buzuvis said the open letter raised awareness among students that Title IX could provide recourse.
"At some point, you get to a tipping point, and it starts to catch on at a much greater rate," she said. "We might be around that tipping point right now."
Title IX can be enforced through a lawsuit or through an administrative complaint with the Department of Education.
The ultimate penalty for an institution under Title IX would be a loss of federal funding. To prevent this, universities under investigation may choose to enter a voluntary resolution agreement where they commit to extensive policy and procedural reforms.
"It's an enormous and powerful penalty because it would include participation in federal financial aid programs," Buzuvis said. "Most schools think participation is important enough that they would do anything to keep on the right side of the law and keep federal funding in place."
Publicity surrounding these cases often catalyzes reforms as well, as pressure mounts for institutions to reevaluate policies.
JOINING THE NETWORK
Given the fallout from the Real Talk protests, Dartmouth would be "an essential part" of nationwide Title IX awareness campaigns, Pino said.
"Dartmouth can't keep isolating itself from the bigger picture," she said. "If you are not an active agent in fixing the problem, you are part of the problem."
Dartmouth would bring harassment into a national conversation that so far has focused primarily on sexual assault.
"Title IX is more than sex discrimination, it's really about the culture of hostility," she said.
Caroline Heldman, a co-complainant in Occidental's Title IX complaint, said that reaching out to faculty and alumni can help students navigate the difficult process of filing a federal complaint. With full academic workloads and the trauma that accompanies sexual violence, students often struggle to effectively work on these campaigns by themselves.
Although administrators discourage faculty members from working on these campaigns, their involvement can build a successful long-term campaign.
"Students have almost no power at institutions," Heldman said. "Administrators wait for them to graduate. They have to listen to people who have been here 30 years."
Connections between campuses provide both institutional and emotional support, Heldman added.
The nationwide, "survivor-run" movement stems from campus-to-campus connections that Pino described as "informal consulting." Before connecting with Amherst and Yale, Chapel Hill suffered from a lack of information and resources.
"When we have this network, this connection, this control, we frame a different conversation," Pino said.
In turn, Swarthmore and Occidental may see similar benefits from the network and from Chapel Hill's example.
"It can be understood that every school that comes forward now is connected to us," Pino said.
Having institutions that have paved the way in Title IX complaints can help campus organizations logistically, Heldman said.
"We got online and saw institutions who were a month or two ahead in the process," Heldman said.
Pino said her campaign at Chapel Hill did not seek to vilify the institution and stressed the importance of raising greater awareness about Title IX issues.
"It impacts every single Dartmouth student," she said. "The culture impacts everybody. Media attention tethering Dartmouth to the nation is part of the solution."
Members of Real Talk Dartmouth and Sexual Assault Awareness Program coordinators Amanda Childress and Rebekah Carrow did not respond to requests for comments.
