The State of California was recently forced to deal with several allegations of sexual harassment. New report reveals he repeatedly failed

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California State University needs to hire far more staff and overhaul huge swathes of its bureaucracy to protect students and staff from sexual harassment and discrimination, according to a wide-ranging series of reports from an outside legal group released today. .

The reports, a month late on Cal States’ own schedule, were produced by law firm Cozen OConnor, which system leaders hired in March 2022 to assess how Cal State’s central office and its 23 campuses abide by the federal law prohibiting sexual and sexual discrimination in schools, known as Title IX, as well as system-specific rules.

Cal State sought out Cozen as part of its response to a USA Today investigation showing that then-Chancellor of Systems Joseph I. Castro mishandled claims that a Fresno State vice president had sexually harassed students and staff while Castro was campus president. The allegations against Castro led to his resignation in February 2022. This followed a series of other allegations on campuses, which in some cases led to the resignation of senior officials.

Recurring themes we heard from all participating voters included institutional betrayal and severe disappointment in response to these incidents, wrote the authors, who compiled their findings and recommendations in a system-wide report. totaling over 236 pages, as well as individual campus reports of approximately 60 pages each. .

The results provide an in-depth and unvarnished examination of how the system has failed in our efforts to provide safe and welcoming campus environments, as Board Chair Wenda Fong said in May, when Cozen’s attorneys have publicly presented their findings.

It will also not be the last independent report looking at sexual misconduct complaint systems. California’s state auditor is due to release its findings tomorrow following a 2022 request from lawmakers.

The legal staffing of the systems is woefully deficient, according to reports.

To date, Cal State has paid Cozen $1,031,401.63 for his work, which included interviews with hundreds of people, analysis of survey responses from 18,000 people, and three-day visits to each campus. from Cal State.

Acting on Cozens’ recommendations such as hiring more employees, training staff, awareness programs so students and employees know how to report harassment and discrimination will cost Cal State an estimated $25 million. in the 2024-25 academic year and unknown annual costs thereafter, system leaders said last week.

Cozens’ attorneys sought to temper the findings by acknowledging the work the system has done to improve, but still criticized Cal State on a wide range of areas.

The results indicated that at Cal State, there is currently no framework to provide the level of oversight that would help promote more consistent and effective practices across the system. The authors recommend that Cal State hire a senior, system-wide executive to oversee its entire civil rights advocacy and harassment apparatus.

Second, the legal staffing of the systems is woefully deficient, according to reports. The authors also write that Cal State is significantly below legal staffing levels in other major public university systems. Among the issues raised by the authors is that each CSU campus is assigned a single central office attorney to handle legal matters and that all attorneys have multiple specialties and administrative duties.

Much of the report focuses on the interplay between Title IX campus employee turnover and poor data collection that conspire to significantly hamper how the state of California responds to complaints of sexual assault and harassment.

Campuses generally track complaints and investigations independently. The lack of uniformity in practices significantly hampers the ability to track data across the system in any meaningful way, the authors wrote.

Due to the porosity of data curation, individual campuses are unable to allocate sufficient resources based on documented and justified needs or to understand the lessons that can be learned from studying the data with respect to relates to issues of prevalence, potential bias or system improvements.

Likewise, campuses are understaffed, further compromising Cal State’s ability to keep college communities safe. Campuses need more staff for prevention and training, complaint investigation and handling, and record keeping and sharing information with the public.

Given the overwhelming nature of the workload, we heard significant concerns about burnout and resulting turnover, the authors wrote. This, in addition to poor record keeping, results in a loss of institutional history.

And all of this has contributed to the trust gap on campus.

The lack of uniformity in practices significantly hampers the ability to track data in a meaningful way across the system.

— Cozen O’Connor law firm report

Staff shortages led to other problems. Limited staff and student awareness of their rights creates negative narratives and perceptions on campus and can prevent individuals from reporting harassment and other abuse.

In addition, understaffing contributed to significant delays in completing investigations, with many investigations spanning more than a year, the authors wrote.

But some of these delays are caused by the specific rights of individuals, including university staff, who are accused of harassment or assault. In various cases, the investigation process must be redone due to state laws and certain collective bargaining policies. This means that Cal State must essentially re-prove the facts as if the underlying conclusion had not been reached, the authors wrote.

Employee rights sometimes conflict with federal requirements. The lack of consistency is partly due to the fact that federal rules change regularly, particularly between US presidential administrations with vastly different guidelines on how campuses should respond to complaints of sexual harassment and assault.

Reports note that when campuses are required to redo the investigative process, the alleged victim and accused persons may cease to participate. In these cases, the university might seek to settle the matter (by reducing discipline) to avoid an adverse outcome before the arbitrator or the State Staff Council.

The authors suggest that some of the ill will the system faces from students and staff is unfair.

Ironically, members of the campus community often criticize senior management and the office of chancellors for sanctions that seem less severe than warranted, when in reality these final sanctions are often driven by outside decision-makers, not the CSU, according to the summary report.

The regulatory environment beyond Cal States’ control, the Cozen authors learned, meant that many campus disciplinary decisions were never carried out and in many cases the accused person was returned to campus with their position reinstated. and an arrears of salary granted.

The authors write that this is a debilitating model that completely guts the outcome of the extensive Title IX investigative process and creates an untenable position for campuses.

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