Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 19:00:50 -0500
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: WSFA Official List <wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com>,
 WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>,
 bsfsgeneral <bsfsgeneral at bsfs.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Harvard Law Loses a Four-Year Fight Over Its Sexual Assault Policy
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
For the past several months, members of the Harvard Law School faculty
have lobbied hard against Harvard\342\200\231s new sexual harassment policy, which
they said lacked \342\200\234the most basic elements of fairness and due process.\342\200\235
They demanded the university withdraw the policy.

Now, Harvard Law School no longer has a choice. The Department of
Education announced on Tuesday that the law school violated Title IX by
failing to properly respond to two student complaints of sexual harassment
and using the wrong standard of evidence in campus cases. As part of an
agreement it reached with the government, Harvard Law must revise its
sexual harassment policy and change how it responds to sexual assault
cases\342\200\224changes that will most likely fall in line with the university-wide
policy HLS professors have been fighting.

The findings mark the end of a sweeping, four-year investigation.
Education officials outlined several violations in their report, including
that it took HLS more than a year to resolve one case, only to fail to
conduct an \342\200\234adequate, reliable, and impartial investigation.\342\200\235  In that
case, it took Harvard Law five months to make an initial decision (to kick
the respondent off campus), four more months for that decision to be
affirmed by a hearing officer, and another four months to reach a final
decision (to reverse their initial decision and dismiss the case). Sixteen
months had passed before the school notified the complainant in writing
saying the case had been dismissed. Because of the school\342\200\231s delay, the
respondent was unable to return to the law school for several months while
the review process continued. The school also failed to give the
complainant a chance to participate in the appeal, even though it allowed
the complainant to give additional testimony (which led to it dismissing
the case).
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-12-30/harvard-law-loses-a-fouryear-fight-over-its-sexual-assault-policy>

         mark