The federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced today that 55 institutions of higher learning are being investigated for possible Title IX investigations related to their handling of sexual assault and rape allegations. The institutions are:
Arizona State University
Butte-Glen Community College District
Occidental College
University of California (Berkeley)
University of Southern California
Regis University
University of Colorado (Boulder)
University of Colorado (Denver)
University of Denver
University of Connecticut
Catholic University
Florida State University
Emory University
University of Hawaii (Manoa)
University of Idaho
Knox College
University of Chicago
Indiana University (Bloomington)
Vincennes University
Amherst College
Boston University
Emersen College
Harvard (college and law school)
University of Massachusetts (Amherst)
Frostburg State University
Michigan State University
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
Guilford College
University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)
Minot State University
Dartmouth College
Princeton University
CUNY (Hunter)
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Sarah Lawrence College
SUNY (Binghamton)
Denison University
Ohio State University
Wittenberg University
Oklahoma State University
Carnegie Mellon University
Franklin and Marshall College
Pennsylvania State University
Swarthmore College
Temple University
Vanderbilt University
Southern Methodist University
University of Texas (Pan American)
College of William and Mary
University of Virginia
Washington State University
University of Wisconsin (Whitewater)
Bethany College
West Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine
The announcement seems to be a strategic move to put national attention on the issue. Says the DOE’s press release: “Releasing this list advances a key goal of President Obama’s White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault to bring more transparency to the federal government’s enforcement activities around this issue. The Obama administration is committed to putting an end to sexual violence—particularly on college campuses.”
Senator Claire McCaskill recently launched a survey of higher-learning institutions’ policies on sexual assault and rape with an eye toward potential legislation, which followed on the heels of the Obama administration’s influential 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter reminding schools of their existing obligations under the law.
