For the second time in less than two years, the federal government is investigating American University for allegedly mishandling a female student’s report of sexual assault.
The D.C.-area private school said in an email to the campus community this week that it will cooperate with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights as it investigates a potential violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments law.
AU is also currently undergoing a separate Title IX violation investigation that began last year.
“AU will respond in a timely manner to OCR’s request for data necessary to investigate this complaint,” Title IX Program Officer Heather Pratt wrote in the memo to the school, adding that the school was notified of the federal investigation on June 23.
Federal investigators will determine whether AU “promptly and adequately” dealt with the complaint of 21-year-old senior Faith Ferber filed on March 8, according to the notice the school received, Pratt’s email said.
According to reports, Ferber’s complaint alleges the school failed to follow OCR guidelines for processing her report that a fellow student assaulted her off-campus. Ferber also alleges that AU forced her to sign a confidentiality agreement before proceeding with a hearing.
She described all of this to The Eagle, AU’s student-run newspaper, in March. Ferber said she reported the incident to university officials in April 2015.
Ferber, who spoke exclusively about ordeal to the Washington Post, said she was sexually assaulted in February 2015 at a sorority party by a student in one of the school’s fraternities. According to Ferber, a hearing got underway in October 2015 after lengthy delays and moved quickly after the accused male student accepted responsibility at an internal AU proceeding.
Though initially pleased with how AU handled her case, Ferber said she was “livid” when her attacker received a year’s probation instead of the suspension she requested.
“I felt completely disrespected,” she told the Post. “They asked me what sanctions I wanted and they didn’t give him anything that I asked for. They put an assailant over a survivor. It was clear during the hearing that this isn’t going to scare him … He clearly doesn’t understand consent.”
Ferber then learned at a sexual assault panel that the school might have violated Title IX by taking longer than 60 days to resolve her case and requiring her to sign a confidentiality agreement.
“I would love to see the university take responsibility,” Ferber said. “It would go a long way to have someone at the university say, ‘Maybe we did mess up and it wasn’t our intention’ … instead of trying to make me look like I’m being dramatic, and trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.”
Of the 296 cases ever received by OCR, 49 have been resolved and 247 are still under investigation, according to data collected by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
