Dive Brief:
- A state audit of four California public universities — UC-Berkeley, UCLA, Cal State-Chico, and Cal State-San Diego — has found that the schools fail to adequately train employees who are in regular contact with students on how to handle incidents of sexual harassment or violence.
- The audit also criticized slow responses to reported incidents and failures to consistently keep students informed about their cases.
- On a positive note, as seen by some university officials, the audit concluded that the four schools brought most cases of sexual harassment or sexual violence "to reasonable resolutions,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Dive Insight:
The audit urges the California Legislature to strengthen laws, and last week, the University of California announced it will form a panel of 75 to 100 people to oversee efforts to deal with sexual violence on all of its 10 campuses. According to the audit, in contrast to the university employees with daily contact with students, employees who are hired to handle discrimination complaints are well-trained. Among the issues identified for specific schools, the audit said that Chico State should provide annual sexual harassment and sexual violence prevention training to its coaches and San Diego State shouldn’t allow incoming students to register for classes until they’ve gone through a sexual harassment and violence training session.