Win in Harvard Case Will Ripple Across Campuses

[niyad]

Win in Harvard Case Will Ripple Across Campuses


Women: 1; Harvard: 0. An unprecedented Title IX case against Harvard Law School was resolved in December. The federal complaint filed in 2010 against the nation's most powerful university sparked an extraordinary national movement against campus sexual assault, and its impact will be huge.


BOSTON (WOMENSENEWS)-- A first-of-its kind Title IX complaint against Harvard Law School was finally decided at the end of December after more than four years of investigation. You may have missed it in the year-end rush but let's take a moment to savor this important and hard-fought victory. The Office for Civil Rights found that Harvard's law school had systematically violated women's rights under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that guarantees women equality in education, in myriad ways.

Among other problems, the school imposed a burden of proof on the victim more onerous than the equitable "preponderance of the evidence" rule, which is mandatory under federal law. It also accorded accused students more rights than victims even though federal law, including Title IX, grants far superior legal status to students who endure civil rights harm compared to those who commit civil rights offenses.

The school was also cited for violating Title IX's promptness mandate and for having no "timeframes" in place for resolving complaints. The decision notes that Harvard has made many reforms since 2010, but more needs to be done and Harvard will remain under review by the Office for Civil Rights while additional changes are made.

The decision against Harvard Law School is significant for many reasons including that when Harvard gets in trouble, all schools pay attention because if an institution filled with the world's best legal academics can't figure out how to comply with Title IX, there's a good chance lots of schools aren't doing the right thing.
. . . .

http://womensenews.org/story/rape/150109/win-in-harvard-case-will-ripple-across-campuses

[Jim Lane]

1. I don't understand the treatment of rights of the accused.

The linked article, written by the professor who filed the complaint, states:

Among other problems, the school ... accorded accused students more rights than victims even though federal law, including Title IX, grants far superior legal status to students who endure civil rights harm compared to those who commit civil rights offenses.

The first point to note is the slippery transition from "accused students" to "those who commit civil rights offenses." The whole point of having an investigative and adjudicatory procedure is that the two phrases are not synonymous.

Substantively, what rights should the complainant have that are different from, let alone "far superior" to, those of the accused?

In skimming the ten-page agreement, I didn't see what this passage in the linked article referred to. For example, there's a "requirement that the Law School inform the students at regular intervals of the status of the proceeding...." That's certainly reasonable, but I'd interpret "the students" to mean the complainant(s) and the accused(s).