UA Codes and Judicial Committee

Sponsored by: Jim Blair, Codes and Judicial Committee

Whereas the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a “Dear colleague” letter (OCR letter) clarifying what it believes Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. �� 1681 et seq., (Title IX) and its implementing regulations, 34 C.F.R. Part 106 requires of schools receiving federal education money, including Cornell, regarding resolution of disputes involving sexual harassment and violence in the student community;

Whereas a group of University officials (the group) was convened to assess the university’s compliance with the legal obligations of Title IX as the OCR letter describes them;

Whereas the group identified several provisions in the Campus Code of Conduct (the Code) they believe do not comply with the OCR letter and related these issues in a letter to the University Assembly (the Assembly) on April 22 (the April 22 letter);

Whereas the Assembly addressed some of the issues raised by the group in their April 22 letter with changes to the Code made effective May 17, 2011, and committed to addressing the other issues promptly in the current academic year;

Whereas the Codes and Judicial Committee (the CJC) of the Assembly has determined that reconciling the procedures of the Code with the mandate of the OCR letter as articulated in the April 22 letter would require an extensive overhaul of the procedures in the Code that would affect offenses other than those related to Title IX and such an overhaul is incompatible with the model of justice and discipline on which the Code is currently based;

Whereas a separate policy apart from the Code could be enacted that provides procedures for the investigation and resolution of disputes involving sexual harassment and sexual assault violence where the accused person is a student (the separate policy);

Resolved that a responsible university official should be designated by the President to develop the separate policy;

Resolved the separate policy may be a revision of University Policy 6.4, which currently provides procedures for similar situations where the accused person is an employee or faculty member of the University, or it may be a new policy modeled after that policy;

Resolved the Assembly will engage in the development of the separate policy as a stakeholder under the terms of University Policy 4.1;

Resolved the Code will retain prohibitions against sexual harassment and sexual assault violence, but provide for the resolution of cases involving such offenses through the separate policy once it is implemented.

Resolved that the separate policy can be cancelled, and sexual harassment and sexual assault can be reinserted back into the Code, if the Code is subsequently revised in a manner that is fully compliant with Title IX requirements and the reinsertion is supported by the Assembly and other stakeholders.