Feds: MSU mishandled sexual assault complaints

EAST LANSING — Michigan State University failed to respond to sexual assault and harassment complaints in a timely manner and may have contributed to a “sexually hostile environment” on campus, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

The report, released Tuesday, said delays created an unsafe climate for many who dealt with prolonged investigations.

As part of an agreement with federal officials that will put an end to a years-long investigation, MSU will take steps to improve its responses to sexual assault and harassment complaints.

The investigation centered on two complaints to the Office for Civil Rights, one filed in 2011 and one in 2014, which the report concluded were not completed in a timely manner. A third complaint was closed with no findings from OCR, according to MSU officials.

“We’re on board with OCR that universities need to address these issues,” MSU President Lou Anna Simon said during a Tuesday afternoon teleconference. “We’re on board with the national conversation that one sexual assault is too many.”

Simon said staff have worked throughout the investigation to augment the university’s policies.

“We’ve acknowledged the challenges, made large commitments (with respect to) time and people. We’ve hired staff, trained them, overhauled our case intake process, invested in our documentation process to make sure problems don’t continue,” said Kristine Zayko, the university’s deputy general counsel.

The federal government has been pushing universities to place greater emphasis on preventing sexual assault and harassment, reinforcing the idea that freedom from such threats is a civil rights issue for women on college campuses.

"If a school knows or reasonably should know about student-on-student harassment that creates a hostile environment," read a 2011 statement from the Office for Civil Rights. "Title IX requires the school to take immediate action to eliminate the harassment, prevent its recurrence, and address its effects."

Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational institutions that receive federal funds.

In the years since, the office has launched investigations at more than 100 universities related to their handling of sexual assault and harassment.

The OCR investigation also found MSU did not adequately communicate its non-discrimination policy to students and staff and may have put several of them at risk for further harm.

“Taking into account all of the evidence gathered during the investigation, OCR determined that a sexually hostile environment existed for and affected numerous students and staff on campus at the university during the time period covered by OCR’s investigation; and that the university’s failure to address complaints of sexual harassment, including sexual violence, in a prompt and equitable manner caused and may have contributed to a continuation of this sexually hostile environment,” the report read.

OCR investigated MSU’s handling of more than 150 discrimination cases filed between 2009 and 2014, Zayko said.

Investigators raised concerns with three cases involving employees and 27 involving students, she said, mostly revolving around a lack of prompt response.

Over the course of the investigation, MSU has bolstered its policies, as well as how it handles gender discrimination cases said MSU Spokesperson Kent Cassella.

The university created the Office of Institutional Equity in April to investigate discrimination complaints and will hire half a dozen investigators to staff it. All faculty and staff members are now required to go through mandatory training as part of the university’s amended policies, Cassella said.

The university did thoroughly and equitably investigate claims brought before the Office for Civil Rights, but it did so too slowly, investigators said. Coupled with a failure to notify students and staff of Paulette Granberry Russell’s position as Title IX coordinator, the university may have allowed a sexually hostile environment to persist, the report said.

Investigators were impeded by MSU’s failure to maintain complete grievances files, the report states.

Officials were also concerned Russell may not have had enough information in those files to take appropriate action to address the reported harassment. The university agreed to develop a new procedure to maintain proper documentation and will go through past files to ensure correct action was taken, officials said.

MSU also agreed to train staff on the revised procedures. MSU students will be required to take mandatory online training on sexual harassment and sexual assault. In-person information sessions on these topics will also be available.

Members of the Greek community will also receive annual training covering topic of sex discrimination, harassment and assault. The university plans to release a campus climate survey later this month, and will also conduct climate check in an effort to develop further programming.

The number of forcible sex offenses has risen from 15 in 2011 to 27 in 2013, the last year for which data was available, according to MSU Police.

Simon said as the university addresses student concerns, they expect to see more reporting harassment or violence because students will feel more comfortable reporting.

Contact RJ Wolcott at (517) 377-1026 or rwolcott@lsj.com . Follow him on Twitter @wolcottr .