UC Berkeley failed to give all students the opportunity for a formal investigation of their sexual harassment or assault complaints and did not resolve all of the cases in a timely manner, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found.

The civil rights office reviewed UC Berkeley’s handling of sexual misconduct complaints from 2011 through 2014, and some from 2017. The office found that, though the campus has improved in some areas, it remained out of compliance with Title IX — the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination at schools that get federal funding — in key areas.

As part of a broad agreement with the federal office released Wednesday, the campus must revisit eight sexual misconduct cases it may have mishandled, and must tighten policies for educating students and employees on preventing sexual abuse.

“I’m relieved that the Education Department has finally validated the students who called on this university to take action,” said Sofie Karasek, 24, who was a UC Berkeley junior in 2014 when she organized more than two dozen students and former students to file the federal case accusing campus officials of acting with “deliberate indifference” in handling their reports of sexual misconduct.

The group’s complaint is one of 458 federal investigations into possible mishandling of sexual misconduct reports that the civil rights office has opened on college campuses across the country since 2011, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which tracks them all. So far, 121 cases have been resolved and 337 remain open.

In a letter to the campus, UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ thanked the students who came forward and outlined an array of improvements — including more staff, services and training — in its handling of sexual misconduct complaints.

The new agreement with UC Berkeley and its accompanying 31-page federal report will close the UC Berkeley case. However, the civil rights office will oversee compliance for two more years.

During that time, the campus will study the effectiveness of its “alternative resolution process” — described as “simple and discreet actions” to resolve sexual misconduct complaints without an investigation. Under the agreement, the process must be prompt and agreed to by both parties.

In Karasek’s case, the vagueness of that process and no option for a formal investigation meant that justice was denied, she said. As a freshman in April 2012, Karasek reported being sexually assaulted by a student. Despite repeated efforts to learn what the campus was doing to investigate, Karasek said she learned nothing until December. The campus sent her an email saying the matter had been resolved through alternative resolution. Two days later, her alleged assailant graduated six months early.

Karasek went on to co-found End Rape on Campus, a national advocacy group.

Under the agreement, UC Berkeley will revisit eight cases, including six involving students who accused graduate student instructors or faculty of abuse but were offered only the alternative resolution process. If any of the six are still enrolled, the campus must ask if they’re experiencing “a hostile environment on the basis of sex.” If so, the campus must try to resolve the problem and, failing that, offer to investigate or provide alternative resolution under the new procedures.

The two other cases involve students who were traveling in a bus convoy as part of an extracurricular activity when male students handed out 45 copies of documents that included pictures of people in “sexually compromising positions,” lyrics calling one woman a slut and implying that she existed for students’ sexual pleasure, and other lyrics targeting another woman as male students’ property, according to the report. An administrator waited 19 days to report that the material contained “sexist, racist, explicit, and pornographic” material — and said he had destroyed all evidence.

Under the agreement, the campus must offer appropriate resolution to the women if they are still students. And staff should receive additional training if needed.