Title IX office brings changes to sexual assault policies

Six months after starting her tenure as Executive Director of the Office of Equity and Diversity and USC’s Title IX Coordinator, Gretchen Means is working slowly but steadily to address sexual assault at USC.

In recent years, USC has built up a negative reputation for the frequency of sexual assault on and around campus, which was highlighted in the Association of American Universities’ 2015 campus survey regarding sexual assault. 29.7 percent of female respondents said that they experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault on campus, higher than the average of 23 percent collected from the 150,000 students surveyed at a total of 27 universities nationwide.

USC has been federally investigated before for Title IX violations in 2013, and at the start of the 2016 spring semester, USC faced backlash from students and the public for asking incoming freshmen to answer questions about their sexual histories before class registration.

“I have committed most of my career to this difficult topic, approaching it from all angles,” Means wrote in an email to the Daily Trojan, referring to sexual assault. “This field is very complex, dynamic and challenging.”

Prior to coming to USC, Means served as a sexual assault expert for the U.S. Marine Corps. She worked with law enforcement and prosecutors to investigate sexual assault allegations and process them through the military justice system. She also developed sexual assault training and protocol for the Corps. Means also worked in the District Attorney’s Office in San Diego.

“My years in the public sector — both with the Marine Corps and the District Attorney’s Office in San Diego — have provided a strong foundation to work at USC on compliance and training efforts related to Title IX, the Violence Against Women Act and equal opportunity and affirmative action regulatory requirements,” Means wrote. “The dynamics and concepts of this topic are similar across populations — that goes for the ‘rules’ as well.”

To stop campus sexual assault at USC, the Title IX office is working on increasing the reporting of sexual assault and harassment and expanding bystander education, two areas Means believes need to be improved.

“Safety is a shared responsibility,” Means wrote. “All of us must be fully committed to ensuring that our campuses are safe places.”

Some prevention initiatives are already in place around the University. These include process clarification, resident assistant training, DPS Officer training and Clery Act reporting.

“Educational efforts are under development to better inform students about the adjudication process for sexual misconduct cases,” Means wrote. “Multiple educational tools — online, web-based, and brochures — have been employed, and will continue to be revised, to clarify matters of privacy and anonymity.”

These educational tools, according to Means, include the online consent education program every student is required to complete before registering for classes the first time.

“Resident assistant training has been broadened to include additional modules related to sexual misconduct,” Means wrote. “[The Department of Public Safety] has implemented a checklist for officers responding to cases of sexual misconduct. The checklist is guided by best practices and consultation from experts at the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center.”

As for Clery Act reporting, “DPS added a specially-trained coordinator to enhance the training of Campus Security Authorities in reporting sexual assault and other crimes for USC’s Annual Security Report,” Means wrote.

While many on-campus clubs work on addressing and preventing campus sexual assault, such as Trojans Against Sexual Assault and the Women’s Student Assembly’s Take Back the Night, the Title IX office and Division of Student Affairs have established the USC Sexual Assault Task Force.

“The task force subcommittees presented many thoughtful, innovative recommendations in May,” Means wrote.

Much of the outcome of these committees has made its way into tangible differences.

“I incorporated many of their recommendations into our new policy; for example, prioritizing our commitment to fair process in the policy and adding dissuasion from filing a report as a prohibited behavior,” Means wrote. “Student involvement is essential at moving our campus forward.”

The task force, which includes students, was created “to further discussions with the student community on issues relating to sexual misconduct and sexual assault,” according to the Student Affairs website. It includes five subcommittees.

The first is Intersectionality of Identities, which deals with the range of identities of students, whether cultural, religious, gender, sexual, person with a disability or any other identity and how they fit in the sexual assault discussion.

The second is Rape Myths/Biases, which addresses the various misconceptions surrounding campus sexual assault and the detriment they pose to survivors and bystanders.

The third subcommittee is Clinical/Advocacy, which focuses on augmenting accessible treatment for survivors and advocating for them both on and off campus.

The fourth is the Policy subcommittee, which will examine existing policy regarding campus sexual assault and discuss ways to educate students about the policies in order to ensure compliance.

The last subcommittee is Campus Awareness. This subcommittee works to help raise awareness of the epidemic of sexual assault among students, as well as the effect that it has on the campus atmosphere.

Means’ vision for the future of USC combating sexual assault is a simple one, but it will take time and effort to achieve.

“We want to engender a culture of safety, respect and understanding, as well as a timely response of integrity and justice for all parties,” Means wrote. “We are working with the community in creating a cohesive, systemic prevention plan.”