Dive Brief:
- Columbia University on Friday released a 28-page revised gender-based misconduct policy that allows students who are alleged victims or accused violators to bring their attorneys to disciplinary hearings and meetings.
- The revised policy also removes students from serving on the hearing panels that decide whether violations have occurred. Instead, the panels will have three student affairs administrators who are specially trained.
- Five campus groups are calling the policy “unacceptable,” and merely a minimum-level attempt at compliance with the U.S. Department of Education regulations.
Dive Insight:
In addition to the revised policy, Columbia will open a new Sexual Violence Response and Rape Crisis/Anti-Violence Support Center this month, as well as launching an expansion of sexual misconduct-related training for incoming students, said President Lee Bollinger. The activist groups — No Red Tape Columbia, the Coalition Against Sexual Violence, Columbia Alumni Against Sexual Assault, Title IX Team, and Take Back the Night of Barnard College at Columbia University — said in a written statement that Columbia wrote the policy without addressing student concerns.
