The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ruled that Harvard University's policy on sexual assault charges conforms with civil rights regulations, based on an investigation conducted over the last eight months.
The policy was originally changed last spring, requiring victims to provide "sufficient independent corroboration" of any allegations of sexual assault before the university would investigate the case.
This move was made to avoid difficult and time-consuming "he said/she said" cases, according to a Harvard press release.
However, Harvard changed the policy for a second time just before the investigation began, requiring merely "supporting information," instead of the more restrictive "sufficient independent corroboration." This second change was due to public concern and the impending investigation, according to the Penn Women's Center Director Ellie DiLapi.
Harvard spokespeople could not be reached to comment on the official reason for the second policy change.
While Harvard's Director of Communications for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Bob Mitchell insisted that "sufficient independent corroboration" could be "anything at all," ranging from third-party eyewitnesses to "a note from a diary," the investigation was launched to determine whether the wording was too restrictive.
According to Director of Penn's Office of Student Conduct Michele Goldfarb, under Penn's current policy, every allegation of sexual assault is investigated, without the necessity of outside information.
"There's nothing like that, there's nothing that requires a threshold," Goldfarb said. "It's not as if we have a threshold to begin an investigation."
However, Goldfarb was quick to note that there are important procedural differences between Penn's policies and Harvard's and said she "can't comment on how the two line up."
DiLapi was very pleased to hear that Harvard changed the language in its policy because she found its proposed wording completely unacceptable.
"Their standard was absolutely outrageous and harmful to women," she said. "I think that's why they changed it."
DiLapi said she was surprised by Harvard's wording before it was changed, citing the difficulty of finding an outside source of information in these cases.
"It's sort of incredulous, the language they had," she said. "If it happened in public, hopefully someone would intervene. These things happen in private."
She contended that a strong sexual assault policy is critical for the health of a university.
"The only way to stop rape is to hold rapists responsible for their behavior," DiLapi said.
While DiLapi is generally satisfied with Penn's stance on sexual assault, she noted that there may still be room for improvement.
"It may be time to relook at our policy, in light of the Harvard situation," she said.
"But as far as I know, at this point, it creates a situation where hopefully individuals who have been assaulted will make it to one of our resources on our campus."
