“Analyzing the Dear Colleague Letter of 2011”, Published in The Undergraduate Journal of Political Science. Cal Poly Pomona. 2018.

In April of 2011, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) released a “Dear Colleague” letter to over 7,000 colleges that receive federal funding across the United States. This policy guidance instructed new legal obligations on the practices colleges must employ to adjudicate cases of sexual violence and sexual misconduct. It has given way to ethical debates on evidence standards, appropriate disciplinary actions in the capacity of the educational system and concerns regarding due process. Further, colleges struggle to comply due to inadequacies in the policy, lack of guidance from the Department of Education and a general lack of funding that would otherwise be used to develop practices to better investigate and adjudicate cases to appoint personnel. These lacking areas have the potential to impact accountability, compliance, due process, privacy, transparency and the investigation. Moreover, this study not only researches these capacities, it seeks to analyze the impact of Dear Colleague Letter of 2011 and the impact of rescinding it. With these concerns in mind, this thesis aims to study The Dear Colleague Letter of 2011 through three campuses, to understand the different practices that are adapted in order to comply with OCR’s policy guidance of 2011. This study analyzes the campuses with the highest, lowest and median reported sexual misconduct cases between the years 2014-2017 as a sounding board for analyzing federal, state and university policies and practices. Ultimately, this study cross examines qualitative and quantitative research and aims to prove if The Dear Colleague Letter of 2011 is efficient and adequate in its guidance.

Athena Garcia-Gunn is photographed in Washington, DC during the ASI Governmental Affair trip to raise awareness of the resolution produced and enacted by CSSA at large. Posted via Athena’s Instagram, 2018.