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The Hatcher Graduate Library at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., on July 2, 2014. As the university waits for the results of a federal investigation, officials say they have worked hard to educate students about consent and taken other steps to prevent sexual assault.

(Patrick Record | The Ann Arbor News)

As an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Michigan who hailed from a small Michigan town, Isabel Suarez was initially wary of being alone at night on campus in Ann Arbor.

It was the year after a series of sexual assaults had been reported in downtown Ann Arbor — and her mother had bought her pepper spray just to be safe. Suarez, now 21 and entering her senior year as a neuroscience major, said her teenage self wasn’t aware of how many sexual assaults occurred in co-ed situations off-campus.

“I think since my freshman year I’ve gained more of an awareness of sexual violence and my surroundings and the situations I put myself in,” Suarez said. “I’ve just matured and realized that sexual assault does happen with an unnatural frequency here.”

Sexual assaults and the handling of them are roiling campuses across the nation, and the University of Michigan is no exception.

A sweeping overhaul of its sexual misconduct policy, a sexual assault scandal involving a star Wolverine football player, an uptick in sexual assault reports and an ongoing federal investigation have brought sexual assaults front-and-center at U-M.



Its policies came into question when it was revealed by the student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, that Wolverine kicker and fifth-year senior Brendan Gibbons was expelled in December, after a U-M review found him responsible for a sexual assault that occurred four years before. Gibbons has not been criminally charged.





Former University of Michigan kicker Brendan Gibbons was expelled from the University of Michigan over sexual assault allegations.

DOE's investigation into U-M's handling of that case is ongoing. The school is one of 60 institutions in the country that are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights for their response to sexual assault allegations. The department visited Ann Arbor in April to interview students and officials about U-M's sexual assault policy.

Meanwhile, in another case, a student claims he was unfairly suspended after a U-M sexual misconduct investigation found him responsible for rape in 2012, and in April filed suit against the school for improperly investigating his case.

The high profile cases and policy change have sparked a campus-wide conversation about sexual assault. That's a good thing, according to U-M's student government president Bobby Dishell.



"It is definitely a good step forward," he said. "It's really important that we're having a conversation. You can easily think, 'Oh, this isn't an issue if it's not talked about.'"



As the DOE began investigating U-M's sexual assault policy, U-M's student government launched its own investigation. Central Student Government had limited access to U-M records, but its review concluded, among other things, that U-M failed to adequately explain why four years lapsed between the alleged Gibbons assault and expulsion and that U-M officials investigating sexual misconduct often failed to complete investigations within the desired 60-day deadline.

The investigation determined that students didn't have enough input in developing the policy, and that the policy was ambiguous about what constituted consent and sexual misconduct. U-M has declined to give details about the Gibbons case or other sexual assault investigations, citing student privacy laws.



In 2010-11, U-M conducted non-criminal investigations of three reported sexual assaults.



Two years later the number had ballooned to 43.



The increase, U-M officials say, is a positive change. It's prompted by a new sexual assault policy, the first iteration of which went into effect in 2011-12, after the White House suggested universities change the way they respond to allegations of sexual assault.



Of the 43 allegations of sexual assault in 2012-13, five students were found responsible and eight were cleared. One investigation was pending at the end of the year. The rest were either referred elsewhere or dropped for a lack of information. There were another 30 allegations of sexual harassment, and six people were found responsible and 10 were cleared.

In April, the White House issued a stern 20-page report urging colleges to more proactive in dealing with sexual assault complaints.



"It's really our responsibility as leaders of this big and complicated university community to figure out how to mitigate this," Mark Schlissel, U-M president-elect, said in an interview at his office in Providence, R.I., where he served as Brown University's provost until June 30. "Life is complicated enough, you shouldn't have to worry about whether a classmate or someone you don't know is going to assault you."



Climate

University of Michigan students Isabel Suarez, left, and Leela Denver talk about safety at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich., on July 2, 2014.

Leela Denver, 21, of Ann Arbor is entering her senior year at U-M and is an English major. One of her friends was sexually assaulted while at U-M, Denver said.

Denver said that although the multiple courses and workshops U-M requires freshmen to take about how to stay safe may seem dumb, there’s value in the messages they impart and they shouldn’t be overlooked.

"I've become a lot more cautious than I was as a freshman. I still walk alone at night," Denver said. "But it's not productive to live in constant fear of what's around you."



Taylor Norton, who graduated U-M in May and led the sexual assault awareness group I Will, said many students know little about sexual assault and prevention unless they experience an assault themselves.



"I am always surprised at how much students don't know about the current policy and the changes," she said. "Most students, until their lives are directly affected by sexual violence, they don't know what the facts are."



She thinks students should be told, up front, statistics about sexual assault at U-M.



According to Holly Rider-Milkovich, director of U-M Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center (SAPAC), the school has three programs in place to educate students about sexual assault, and in the fall will start a social media and marketing campaign to further raise awareness.



Rider-Milkovich says incoming freshmen are required to take a three-hour online course on alcohol education and sexual violence prevention before arriving on campus. The course contains information and links that are relevant to U-M's policies and resources.

The school also offers a 90-minute course for new students, often offered in the residence halls, called relationship remix. Among the topics discussed in the course are consent and sexual assault.



Starting in the fall, U-M is offering a similar one-time course for new students that focuses on bystander intervention when students encounter incidents of bias or sexual misconduct.



"We want to be doing a lot of work to prevent the behavior from ever happening," she said. SAPAC, a confidential source for students who have been assaulted, logged 580 student visits last academic year.



Yet while U-M has programs in place, some students say many on campus remain unaware of school resources aimed at sexual assault.



"Most students just don't even know what resources are available to them, they don't understand what the school can do through Title IX and what type of procedures are in place to help survivors of sexual assault," said Carlyn Williams, a U-M law student and former leader of University Students Against Rape.



"The climate, I think, generally is either denial or misunderstanding or not knowing what's available," she said.



In the three-year span the 2011 to 2013 academic years, sexual assault allegations at U-M increased from three to 38 to 43. U-M officials and sexual assault advocates say the increase of reported assaults is proof of an improved campus climate when it comes to sexual assault.



"We have seen the number of reports that the university addresses go up dramatically since the change in our policy and since all of the work that we've don't to educate our community about our policy," Rider-Milkovich said.



"That to me is a positive sign for our climate, that we have a climate that is more welcoming and more conducive to reporting."



What is U-M's policy?



When U-M changed its sexual assault policy — first with an interim policy in 2011 and then a permanent new policy in 2013 — the school lowered the burden of proof necessary to find someone in violation and widened the pool of people who can lodge a complaint. It also changed the investigative structure of how U-M responds to a sexual assault, based on federal recommendations.



Under the new policy, someone is found in violation if investigators find it "more likely than not" that they committed an assault. That means if it is 51 percent-plus likely someone committed an assault, they'll be found in violation of U-M's policy and sanctioned.



Before the change, U-M only went forward with an investigation if the alleged victim wanted to go forward and participated in the investigation. Now the school must investigate a case regardless of who reports it or whether the alleged victim wants to take part in the review.

U-M findings of sexual assault are separate from criminal findings. U-M considers sexual assaults a violation of student code of conduct, and sanctions can include anything from counseling to expulsion.



When a case comes before U-M's Office of Institutional Equity, which investigates all sexual assault violations, the office will notify police of the alleged assault. Then one of two investigators will contact the alleged victim, the respondent and witnesses, as well as gather evidence — such as video or a lie detector test submitted to police as a part of a concurrent criminal investigation. U-M investigators are lawyers who receive in-house training on how to investigate sexual assault allegations.



An investigator will weigh the responses and evidence and make a finding. The finding is shared with U-M's Title IX coordinator, who makes a final decision. The office then creates a draft report and sends the report to the alleged victim and the respondent, who can respond to the findings before U-M creates a final report.



During an investigation, U-M may separate the alleged victim and the respondent if they share a class, residence hall or apartment together. U-M notifies police of allegations. If the respondent is a student athlete, the athletic department is notified of the investigation.



Anthony Walesby, U-M's senior director of the Office of Institutional Equity and its Title IX coordinator, says student athletes are not treated differently during an investigation.



When an investigator is considering a case, the issue that's usually under debate is consent. Consent is described in U-M's sexual assault policy as: "Clear and unambiguous agreement, expressed in mutually understandable words or actions, to engage in a particular activity."





In February, students protested the University of Michigan's handling of the rape allegations against ex-football player Brendan Gibbon. Here, Tessa Patterson, a University of Michigan senior, raises her fist during the protest. Brianne Bowen | The Ann Arbor News

The definition, some students say, is vague, and can lead to confusion.

"A lot of people just don't know what's defined as sexual misconduct and what's defined as consent," Dishell said. "These really big questions... aren't defined in the policy."

Walesby says issues of consent and misconduct are rarely cut-and-dried.

"In many of the cases the complainant's version of events and the respondent's version of events are very similar, the issue of consent can be the main one that we're addressing," he said. "The policy is trying to convey that there's an expectation that the party who may be escalating or engaging or initiating the sexual conduct, that they have a reasonable belief that that is OK to engage in."

A finding from the Office of Institutional Equity can be appealed. In a closed session, an appeals board — comprised of a student government representative, a faculty member and an administrator — will look at the case and make a recommendation to U-M's vice president of student affairs, who has the final decision on whether to uphold the office's finding.

When a sexual assault case comes across Walesby's desk, it's not uncommon for either the alleged victim or the respondent, or both, to have been drinking before or during the incident.

"Some of our students may be drinking alcohol and engaging in sexual activity with each other. We know that," he said. "That it is an element in several of our cases."

Alcohol can blur the lines of consent, and make sexual assault cases complicated.

Bigger problem?

The federal government, in its April report, stated that one in five female students is sexually assaulted while in college, most often during her freshman or sophomore year and by someone she knows.

“Colleges and universities can no longer turn a blind eye or pretend rape and sexual assault doesn’t occur on their campuses,” Vice President Joe Biden said during a conference after the report was released. “We need to provide survivors with more support and we need to bring perpetrators to more justice and we need colleges and universities to step up.”

Though not under investigation by the DOE, Brown's policies have also come under scrutiny recently, after a student protested that her attacker is allowed to return to campus after a yearlong suspension for sexual assault.

An online petition started in April aimed at reforming the Brown's handling of sexual assault has gained more than 3,000 signatures. Among the demands is lengthening the suspensions of students found responsible for sexual assault and having a panel, rather than a single administrator, adjudicate all assault cases.

In response, the school's president, Christina Paxson, is convening a taskforce to improve Brown's policies and is hiring a full-time Title IX coordinator to assist in assault cases.

Schlissel said sexual assault on campus is evidence of a bigger societal issue, a problem that is "now being put onto the laps of universities" by the White House.

"The president stands up and says I can't solve this problem in the whole country that I control, but now we're going to focus on sexual assault on college campuses," he said.

U-M, he said, should accept the challenge.

"We're being used and I think we should embrace this as a laboratory to try to work on big problems that don't just happen in the academy, but we can put our hands around them as a community of scholars and students and try to work on them," he continued, "and if we can succeed maybe we can model the way we succeeded for the people outside the university."

Kellie Woodhouse covers higher education for The Ann Arbor News. K-12 education reporter Amy Biolchini contributed to this report.