Dive Brief:

• More colleges and universities are making it mandatory for professors to report alleged sexual assaults to their institutions when students disclose those allegations.
• Making professors subject to mandatory reporting may discourage student disclosure, and the American Association of University Professors opposes such policies, Inside Higher Ed reports.
• The University of Northern Iowa and the University of Maine System recently started requiring all employees to report sexual assault claims.

Dive Insight:

The Clery Act designates “campus security authorities” as mandated reporters of sexual assault. Additionally, Title IX says that employees are required to report discrimination when they have authority to take action against sexual violence, they have been deemed mandatory reporters by their school, or they can be assumed by students to have authority over sexual assault and discrimination issues. One concern of the American Association of University Professors is that making professors mandatory reporters can have a chilling effect on their communication with students and limit academic freedom, particularly when the course deals with women’s studies or sex.