A Historical Look at CU Boulder's Title IX Problem
Title IX, an education amendment introduced in 1972, prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender. It mandates that no student “be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
The Washington Post-Kaiser foundation has confirmed that 20 to 25 percent of women and 7 percent of men have experienced unwanted sexual contact to some degree during their college career, a statistic that has been consistent for more than 15 years. Despite this prevalence, in 2014 a Senate subcommittee found that 41 percent of 236 universities surveyed had conducted zero sexual assault investigations during the past five years.
When such a high volume of students experience sexual violence, public universities and institutions have a requirement to keep students safe and investigate these claims under Title IX guidelines. As of April 2015, more than 113 investigations of Title IX violations at 106 institutions across the U.S. are ongoing, including the University of Colorado Boulder. These investigations center on the handling of sexual assault cases and the punitive punishments levied by institutions, which rarely include expulsion.
CU is no stranger to criticism regarding its handling of sexual assault reports. From 1999 to 2004, there were six high-profile reports of sexual assault. In 2007, the university settled for $2.8 million with Lisa Simpson and Anne Gilmore, two women who were raped at a party by football players and high school recruits while they were students in 2001. “The facts of this particular case were egregious,” Jocelyn Samuels, an attorney with the National Women’s Law Center said. “But ultimately what I think is most relevant for other universities is to recognize that the law means what it says. They have a legal obligation to ensure the safety of their students.”
According to Sarah Gilchriese, the student who filed the most recent federal complaint against CU for Title IX violations, university administration failed to impose an appropriate penalty on her assailant.
“He approached me on campus a couple times, but when I told the university they didn’t care. I wanted a restraining order for personal reasons for the rest of my life, I just didn’t want him around me. At the very minimum they should’ve suspended him until I was off campus,” Gilchriese explained.
Gilchriese, who was raped by a fellow CU student in February of 2013, filed a report with the Code of Conduct office shortly after the assault. The Code of Conduct office notified her assailant that due to the severity of her allegations, during that time he was not to have any contact with her. The notice stated that “Any harassing contact with Sarah could be construed as retaliatory in nature and result in additional judicial or criminal charges.”
Despite this ruling, the assailant approached her twice on campus, and the university did not respond to her concerns about this for five weeks. He was never expelled, and only forced to remain off campus after Gilchriese worked with the Boulder Police to file a protective order. The order requires him to stay 100 feet away from her and the campus, at all times, for the rest of her life.
CU settled with Gilchriese for $32,500, more than a year after her assault. She will graduate this December, a semester later than she originally intended. Gilchriese dropped out of two classes in spring 2013 while her assailant was allowed to remain on campus.
The Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance, whose primary role is to enforce policy around sexual misconduct, protected class discrimination and harassment, is under ongoing federal investigation. Gilchriese feels the university has made changes since her complaint, but also maintains that better and more frequent education initiatives around consent and sexual assault need to be implemented.
“The management and the bureaucracy needs to handle how they talk about the reporting process, how they handle the reporting process and then how they actually impose sanctions,” Gilchriese said.