Navigating Title IX and Criminal Justice Systems After Campus Assault
- Campus sexual assault survivors face a grueling process when using university disciplinary systems and the criminal justice system at the same time.
- When a student reports an assault on campus, a university’s Title IX office first determines whether the alleged behavior violates school policy.
- A student identified as Mary stated that the disciplinary process at her college was entirely unclear to her when she made the decision to report her assault.
Campus sexual assault survivors face a grueling process when using university disciplinary systems and the criminal justice system at the same time. Unclear guidance and parallel procedures often create intense confusion, leading some students to abandon reporting altogether.
University and Criminal Justice Systems Create Reporting Challenges
When a student reports an assault on campus, a university’s Title IX office first determines whether the alleged behavior violates school policy. Both parties then attend a hearing featuring a panel of faculty members or other mediators. During this hearing, participants present evidence and testimony before the institution reaches a final decision.
One of the biggest challenges sexual assault survivors face is using the university and the criminal justice system at the same time. These two entities serve different purposes, operate under different rules and timelines, and lead to different outcomes, according to Zoey Scheinblum-Brewer, a policy coordinator at the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, a nonprofit anti-sexual assault organization. She noted that these simultaneous tracks often feature ambiguous instructions regarding choices, frequently generating enough perplexity and doubt that certain complainants ultimately give up on filing a report at all.
Mary Describes Confusion And Exhaustion During The Investigation
A student identified as Mary stated that the disciplinary process at her college was entirely unclear to her when she made the decision to report her assault. Commenting on university administrators, she mentioned that understanding the road ahead beforehand would have been helpful, and she remarked that it felt as though they were figuring out the procedures right along with her.
While some colleges, such as Cornell, maintain information-sharing agreements with local police departments, Mary was told she had to go to the police separately to file a report. She described that separate requirement as physically exhausting.
Mary’s lawyer noted that surveillance footage from the night of the incident showed her alleged rapist carrying her slumped over, and she also provided photographs of her bruises and bite marks. Despite this evidence, police informed Mary that they lacked probable cause for an arrest. Officers told her that the local district attorney wanted to leave the matter to the university administration.
I was left with this taste that because they knew that the college was handling my investigation, that they could wipe their hands clean of it, Mary said.
Local Authorities Have Not Commented On The Pending Claims
The local police department told the BBC that it did not possess the specific details of Mary’s particular case. Meanwhile, the local district attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.