Colleges and universities across the country have been forced by the federal government to micromanage the sex lives of students, and now they are seeing the costs associated with those demands.
So far in 2016, eight different judges have ruled favorably for students accused of campus sexual assault who are suing their universities for gender discrimination and a lack of due process. The most recent ruling involved a student at the University of Southern California involving a male student who was expelled for what other people did to a woman he was having sex with.
Gary Pavela, who edits the “Law and Policy’s Report” from the Association of Student Conduct Administration, told Inside Higher Ed that “Something is going seriously wrong” with the schools that are now losing in the courts.
“In over 20 years of reviewing higher education law cases, I’ve never seen such a string of legal setbacks for universities, both public and private, in student conduct cases,” Pavela said.
All of these lawsuits are costing colleges and universities millions. If students want to know why their tuition keeps going up, this is part of the reason.
Brett Sokolow, a sexual assault consultant who founded the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, recently broke down the prices schools pay to investigate accusations of sexual assault and defend themselves from lawsuits over the matter. Sokolow said that responding to lawsuits from students involved in sexual assault accusations “can run into the high six or even seven figures, not counting a settlement or verdict.”
Further, schools — especially privileged Ivy League universities — have been beefing up their Title IX offices to deal with accusations, since sexual assault is covered under the anti sex-discrimination statute. Harvard University, for example, employs 50 full-time and part-time Title IX coordinators at its 13 schools. Yale employs nearly 30 faculty and staff members to handle Title IX issues, and pays 48 students to listen to their peers and report what they deem distress.
Likewise, Columbia University employs 11 educators and 7 case workers to handle Title IX complaints, and the school provides legal services for accusers and the accused.
The salaries of each of these staff members ranges between $50,000 and $150,000 a year. Sokolow estimated that all of this — lawyers representing the school, Title IX coordinators, as well as prevention programs — can cost small schools about $25,000 a year and larger schools up to $500,000 or more per year. Add to that the cost of litigation by those treated unfairly in this system, and you almost begin to wonder whether schools should even be in the business of micromanaging student sex lives, and why the federal government is forcing them to do it.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
