The College will hire a trained investigator to examine and determine responsibility for sexual assault cases as well as mandate expulsion for students found guilty of rape, under a proposed sexual assault policy released March 14. In addition to substantially modifying Dartmouth’s adjudication process and imposing stricter sanctions on perpetrators, the proposal clarifies the College’s definition of certain terms such as consent.
Under the proposed policy, the investigator will research sexual misconduct complaints, conducting interviews and reviewing available evidence and documentation. Following this investigation, the investigator will draft a report that includes a factual assessment of the case and a conclusion about whether the alleged perpetrator assaulted the alleged victim.
Lisa Friel ’79, who has worked with Dartmouth on its judicial processes in the past, may serve as an investigator, College President Phil Hanlon said. The College will most likely hire an attorney, retired law enforcement officer or another individual with years of experience in examining and judging sexual assault cases, but administrators will probably name more than one person to increase availability, he said.
If the investigator finds an individual responsible for sexual assault, a sanctioning panel consisting of the College’s director of judicial affairs, its Title IX coordinator and a representative designated by the dean of the perpetrator’s school will convene to impose a punishment. The representative will be an associate dean responsible for student affairs if the perpetrator is an undergraduate student, or the dean of the perpetrator’s school if the individual is a graduate or professional school student.
Either the student charged with sexual assault or the complainant may submit a request for review within seven days of a decision.
The proposal mandates expulsion for a student found guilty of sexual assault involving sexual penetration, oral-genital contact or oral-anal contact through force, threat or purposeful incapacitation of a survivor. The sanctioning panel will also impose expulsion if the student in question committed the same acts motivated by bias based on various social factors including race, religion and sexual orientation or if the student possesses prior records of sexual assault. The likely sanctions for all other cases include a fine, warning, College probation, no-contact order and restriction from specific College programs, activities or housing.
Current College policy invests Safety and Security with the authority to investigate sexual assault reports and dictates that a Committee on Standards panel — usually composed of two faculty members, two students and an administrator — try sexual assault cases and impose sanctions. The exiting policy states that students found guilty of actual or attempted sexual penetration without consent or those guilty of repeatedly committing sexual misconduct “should be prepared to be permanently separated from the College.” Apart from expulsion, the COS will select from the sanctions of warning, reprimand, College probation, suspension and special action, the last option entailing removal from specific College housing, events or areas.
The investigator model seeks to help students feel more comfortable about reporting sexual assault, Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson said.
“What we hope this will result in is an increased confidence in the way we adjudicate these cases and increased credibility around the system, all of which will feed into creating community,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that the proposed policy responds to victim concerns about testifying in front of a COS panel, which could include students and faculty members whom the victim knows.
The proposed policy does not specify situations in which a student would not be expelled for rape, director of judicial affairs and assistant dean of undergraduate students Leigh Remy said.
Remy said that she usually heard strong opinions in favor of automatic expulsion in public and more nuanced opinions in private, and that she wondered how students could have a real exchange of their thoughts on this topic.
“Victims should have a forum to speak out without being evaluated or censored or condemned,” Remy said. “And there are other people who say, ‘But I have a perspective to share that would differ, how do I do that in a way that’s not blaming the victim but in a way that’s bringing forward a different perspective?’ There’s a fear that by asking questions or sharing an opinion, you can automatically be accused as someone who supports rape.”
The sanctioning panel is not given information about previous cases until it finds a person responsible for sexual misconduct, Remy said. Precedent would not mandate an outcome, but would inform the decision, she said. Remy estimated that about three cases per year go through the undergraduate judicial affairs office but noted that this year had seen a spike in the number of reported cases.
All findings will be determined using a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, meaning that a verdict will depend on “whether it is more likely than not that the Responding Person engaged in Sexual Assault.” The College’s current sexual assault policy also uses this burden of proof.
The federal Office for Civil Rights mandated in 2011 that federally funded educational programs or activities use the “preponderance of the evidence” standard in sexual assault hearings.
In addition to altering the College’s adjudication procedures and strengthening punishment for students found guilty of sexual assault, the proposed policy defines nine terms frequently used in Dartmouth’s sexual misconduct policy. Although the current policy contains many of these terms, it does not define them.
The proposed policy defines consent as “clear and unambiguous agreement, expressed in mutually understandable words or actions, to engage in a particular activity.”
Remy said that this definition does not mark a policy change. Rather, the clarification aims to emphasize the affirmative aspect of consent.
“It’s not a question of did you hear no,” Remy said. “I think it’s really a question of how did you hear yes.”
The proposed policy defines sexual assault as “unwanted or unwelcome touching of a sexual nature, including fondling, oral sex, anal or vaginal intercourse, digital penetration, penetration with an object, or other sexual activity that occurs without valid Consent.” The new definition also includes abetting or concealing sexual assault as instances of sexual misconduct.
Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault former chair Dani Levin ’12 said she thinks that the proposed changes to the sexual assault policy indicate “progress” but will not fix all of Dartmouth’s problems surrounding sexual assault.
“We can’t really prove that this is the solution we need without having understood the problem well enough,” Levin said.
Levin said she believes the root of Dartmouth’s sexual assault problems lies in the distribution of power on campus regarding not only gender but also other social markers like race, socioeconomic class and culture. She cited the “Freedom Budget” protest as an example of students’ dissatisfaction with the current power distribution.
“Dartmouth has a power problem,” Levin said, and the College needs to undergo a period of “genuine and extremely self-critical reflection” to resolve this problem.
Johnson said that the new policy was proposed to improve the climate of reporting at the College. The Committee on Student Safety and Accountability’s fall 2013 report, SPCSA recommendations and research performed by Remy and others influenced the administration’s decision to revise the policy.
“By implementing the policy in its final form, one of the clear messages we’ll send is that the institutional weight is behind expulsion as the presumptive outcome of someone who penetrates someone else without his or her consent,” Johnson said.
Other Schools’ Sanctions
Through the SPCSA’s Elizabeth A. Hoffman research grants, grant recipient Silvia Arora ’16 investigated the sexual misconduct adjudication processes at Dartmouth’s peer institutions. Arora surveyed 19 colleges, including all eight Ivy League institutions.
According to Arora’s research, none of the other seven Ivy League schools has explicitly mandated that individuals found guilty of sexual misconduct be expelled from their institution.
Brown University, Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania have some combination of students, administrators, faculty and staff investigate and adjudicate sexual assault cases. Yale University, Harvard University and Columbia University have an external investigator, as does Dartmouth, but this person does not adjudicate sexual assault cases — administrators or staff members at the universities determine responsibility for cases.
Five other Ivy League institutions — Brown, Columbia University, Cornell, Penn and Yale — use the “preponderance of the evidence” standard to determine sexual assault sanctions.
Princeton University’s standard of proof mandates that the complainant put forth a “clear and persuasive case,” while Harvard employs several standards across its schools, all of which are more stringent than the “preponderance of the evidence” standard.
At Penn, an administrative office is responsible for investigating sexual misconduct cases, while at Columbia, a University-affiliated designee appointed by the Assistant Director conducts investigations.
Other Ivy League institutions use committees to investigate sexual assault incidents and preside over disciplinary hearings. These committees are typically composed of some combination of administrators, faculty and students.
Twenty of 21 students interviewed by The Dartmouth expressed general support of the policy.
“The policy shows that Dartmouth is really serious about [sexual assault],” Jonathan Katzman ’17 said.
Shayn Jiang ’15 said that the proposed policy will deter potential aggressors, and Kimberly Mei ’17 said that the policy should have existed beforehand.
“There isn’t any reason to have people not feel safe on campus,” Meghan Hassett ’15 said.
Vanny Nguyen ’17 said he opposes the College’s plan of employing an outside investigator to examine and adjudicate sexual assault cases.
“The way I see it, it’s easy for the College to just expel people without proper evidence and dissociate themselves from potential rapists,” Nguyen said. “I think the law should investigate and determine guilt first, and then the College can adjust consequences accordingly.”
Office for Civil Rights’ 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter notes that the “preponderance of the evidence” standard is the required standard of proof for violations of civil rights laws and thus the “appropriate” standard for investigations of sexual harassment allegations. Five of the 21 students interviewed said that an alleged perpetrator should be expelled if and only if the investigator knows with total certainty that the individual is guilty, not on the basis of whether or not the person is more likely than not to have committed sexual assault.
Hassett cited the “preponderance of the evidence” standard as a main reason that she believes there are arguments against the sexual assault policy, but she expressed support for the standard.
“I am a firm believer that one of the reasons sexual assaults do not get reported is because our system is biased against victims,” she said.
Subur Khan ’17 said she agreed. As sexual assault is an underreported crime, it is unlikely that people will bring forward false claims, she said.
“It takes a lot to report one,” she said.
Arora’s research found that students at peer institutions, echoing their counterparts at Dartmouth, expressed concern over the “preponderance of the evidence” standard, with some fearing that the standard would allow individuals charged with sexual assault to be punished too easily.
The revised practices will go into effect summer term, Johnson said. The administration plans to educate the community about the policy before implementation, Remy said.
Remy noted that the proposed policy is clearly labeled a draft, and that the administration plans to revise the policy in the coming months after gathering input.
On March 14, Hanlon distributed a letter requesting feedback on the proposed policy. Only four comments were posted on the Improve Dartmouth website, and the Office of Public Affairs could not provide the number of comments received privately.
Mei is a member of The Dartmouth staff.
Michael Qian, Sera Kwon and Amelia Rosch contributed reporting.
