Maddi O’Neill
News Editor
On Tuesday, April 29, an updated Equal Opportunity, Harassment and Non-Discrimination Policy was endorsed by Campus Council. It will be forwarded to faculty and then to President Grant Cornwell for further consideration and final approval in the coming weeks.
The new policy will not significantly alter the College’s current one — rather, it is a “unified, comprehensive policy that addresses all discrimination complaints involving students, faculty and/or staff; it applies to all members of the campus community,” said Angela Johnston, Secretary and Chief of Staff of the College. “We currently have different policies for different types of discrimination, as well as a different policy for sexual assault and sexual harassment, and the varied placement of the policies in various formats in various College handbooks is inconsistent and confusing.”
The policy will bring together the College’s pre-existing non-discrimination, accommodation of disabilities and harassment policies, including sections on sexual harassment, consensual relationships and sexual misconduct. The policy also outlines reporting options and remedial and responsive and/or protective actions available to both complainants and respondents.
Johnston, who is also the College’s Title IX coordinator, has headed the push to update, clarify and unify the College’s policy to comply with Title IX mandates. Title IX, a section of the Education Amendments of 1972, is a federal statute that forbids gender-based discrimination at institutions that received federal funding. The College was given a model policy, on which the new policy is based, after hosting a successful training session facilitated by the Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA) in the summer of 2013.
“As a show of appreciation for the College’s efforts in recruiting other participants [for the training] above-and-beyond what ATIXA expected, ATIXA provided the model policy as a courtesy and waived the purchase and licensing fees,” said Johnston.
The policy was updated to reflect Ohio law and reviewed in the context of the College’s standards of conduct. It was also reviewed by Campus Council’s Judicial Committee, which suggested a few minor changes.
“The changes that were suggested by the Campus Council Judicial Committee have already been incorporated in the document that is accessible on the Campus Council wiki,” said Campus Council Chair Sunny Mitra ’16.
“Campus Council started talking about changing the College policy of sexual assault and non-discrimination towards the end of last year,” Mitra added. “We were informed that such a policy was in the pipeline and was being reviewed by the legal counsel of the College, so we waited for this policy to come through to us before suggesting any changes.”
An open campus discussion of the policy, hosted by Campus Council, resulted in only minor changes. Specifically, the community meeting added the prohibition of faculty-student relationships and a clarification of the reporting process for discrimination and harassment.
If the policy is approved by faculty and Cornwell, it should be implemented as soon as July 1, at which point the College’s handbooks and website are expected to be updated to reflect the changes.