When students eventually return to campus, one major change they will find is a change in the processes around sexual misconduct allegations.

Originally passed in 1972, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act aimed to eliminate descrimination based on sex at all educational institutions. From ensuring schools offer the same number of sports for males and females, to regulating the process around sexual misconduct, Title IX applies to all K-12 and colleges and universities that receive federal funding. 

The Department of Education recently announced sweeping changes to Title IX rules at colleges and universities, which must be implemented around the country by Aug. 14. The rules, implemented by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, outlines how allegations of sexual misconduct and assaults are handled on campuses around the country.

Several CWU administrators, including  CWU’s IX coordinator and the head of rights and responsibilities, said the changes will give more fairness and equity to the process.

Staci Sleigh-Layman, the executive director of Human Resources and the Title IX coordinator at CWU, said rules established during the Obama administration were “victim-centered”, and these rules aim to treat both sides fairly.

“I think the overriding concern in the past has been ‘how do we protect the complainant?’” Sleigh-Layman said. “This person that’s been through this horrendous thing.”

These previous rules were designed to ensure an accuser’s dignity, prevent any retaliatory behavior in their classes and prevent intimidation. However, Sleigh-Layman said these rules also raised fears of accused students being “railroaded through a system” and not given due process.

“These changes right now are really in response to that concern,” Sleigh-Layman said. “These new changes give a lot of credibility and due process and equal kind of attention to the person accused as well as the person coming forward.”

The intent of the new rules is to treat both sides equally.

“I think what these rules do now is they try to balance that concern, and so they put in place a process that seeks to provide due process for both sides,” Sleigh-Layman said.

In the previous rules, parties did not have the ability to cross-examine each other during a hearing. This was done to try to limit harm done to accusers during a hearing.

“Processes in the past have tried to limit the number of times that a victim has to tell their story and relive that,” Sleigh-Layman said.

However, under the new rules, both the accused and the accuser can cross-examine in a hearing. The parties are not able to conduct these cross-examinations themselves; these will be done instead by trained advisers. Joseph Bryant, the executive director of student rights and responsibilities, said the school is responsible for ensuring students have advisers in these meetings.

“If someone doesn’t have an adviser to do that or the adviser refuses to do that, we as a university have to provide a trained adviser to do cross-examination,” Bryant said.

Currently, CWU does not have a process in place for trained advisers who can conduct the cross-examination. Bryant said this is one of the things they’re working through.

“We don’t have those individuals right now, or individuals trained to do that,” Bryant said.

Another change in the guidelines is that CWU must first get a firsthand report to begin an investigation.

“It’s clearly defined that it has to be reported by the complainant themselves, or by the Title IX coordinator,” Bryant said. “Before, if we got a third-party report from a coach or a faculty member or a roommate, that may lead to the preliminary of a formal investigation.”

Bryant said under these new rules, a third-party allegation cannot lead to an investigation. There were also changes to how the investigations themselves are conducted.

Under the previous rules, CWU operated with a single investigator model. This meant that Sleigh-Layman was solely tasked with overseeing the investigation as well as deciding.

“These new regulations are pretty clear that you have to have a separate investigator from the decision maker,” Bryant said.

Under these new rules, there are several new people in the process who were not previously involved. Other than the separation of the investigator and decision maker roles, there must now be a person who does the initial outreach, an adviser for each student and a person to hear a potential appeal.

Bryant said each of these people must be “very intentionally and thoroughly trained” on Title IX as well as other rules and regulations.

While the new rules allow for an informal resolution, Bryant said there is fear the new rules and additional people involved could slow the process down.

“It has the potential of making the process go longer, because there are some set timelines in there, and pieces that weren’t required before,” Bryant said.

After the preliminary investigation, each party now has 10 days to read the report and make critiques and recommendations to the investigator. From there, the investigator will write a final report and there will be another 10 days before a decision is made.

Bryant said this would be a minimum 20 extra days that were not in the previous process.

“I think the concern it has is that things like elongating the process could have a chilling effect on people reporting cases of sexual harassment or sexual assault,” Bryant said. “This process could extend over the majority of the quarter.”

While the school is still determining how to proceed, a potentially major change in the rules is who on campus is required to report allegations of sexual misconduct.

Under the previous rules, employees who were determined to be “responsible employees” were required to report all allegations of sexual misconduct to the Title IX director. At CWU, every staff and faculty member was designated as a responsible employee. Under the new rules though, only “officials with authority” are required to report allegations.

In the new rules, all K-12 employees were designated as officials with authority. However, there is ambiguity about who an official with authority is on a college campus. Sleigh-Layman said CWU is still investigating whether the change in wording will reduce the number of people who are required to report allegations.

“I’m not sure that ‘responsible employees’ is the same as ‘official with authority,’” Sleigh-Layman said. “A faculty member probably doesn’t consider themselves somebody that’s in authority.”

The change in wording could mean staff and faculty may not have the same reporting responsibilities they had before. If a faculty member learns of a sexual assault allegation, they may not be required to report it to the Title IX coordinator like they were in the previous system.

Bryant said CWU’s goal is to determine reporting requirements by the Aug. 14 deadline. This way, the university can inform all staff and faculty who is and isn’t required to report allegations, and how they can report.

One thing that will remain the same is the standard of evidence.

Under the Obama era rules, the threshold for evidence was lowered to 51%. This meant a hearing had to determine the allegation was more likely to have happened than not. Under the new rules, schools have the option of keeping this standard or raising the bar to “overwhelming evidence.”

Whichever standard a college or university chooses, they must use that standard for all investigations, not just those that involve a Title IX investigation. Bryant said CWU has no plans to raise the threshold for evidence.

“There’s no conversations or plans from anyone on the Title IX committee or other administration on us having a higher standard than we have always used,” Bryant said.

Colleges in the state are also waiting from the Washington State Attorney General’s office on how to proceed. Sleigh-Layman said the hope is these guidelines will hopefully allow the new rules to be implemented uniformly at all universities in the state. The guidelines are expected by the end of June, which will allow CWU to finalize their procedures before the August deadline.

Bryant said these guidelines will help ensure that CWU follows both the new federal regulations as well as existing state laws.

“We also have to comply with the state’s Administrative Procedures Act,” Bryant said.

With classes remaining online for summer quarter, Sleigh-Layman said the chances of a report of sexual misconduct on campus during the transition period is relatively low.

“This is the only time I’ve said this, but not having students on campus for summer is a good thing for this,” Sleigh-Layman said.

Sleigh-Layman said this will allow the university to fully review and implement the new rules before students return to campus in the fall.

“We’re still getting educated on what that all looks like,” Sleigh-Layman said. “I think that the whole world of Title IX is kind of up in the air at the moment.”