Safer Schools Sexual Assault Task Force Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

2:00 pm – 4:00 pm

San Francisco State University

Student Services Building (SSB) 401 Conference Room

1600 Holloway Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94132

Participants:

 

Task Force Members

Present:

Denise Caramagno

Luoluo Hong

J. Ocean Mottley

Marisa Rodriguez, on behalf of the District Attorney’s Office

Denise Sicat Wong

Leslie Simon

Stacey Wiggall

 

Absent:

Una Bailey

Janelle White

 

Consultant

Julia Weber

 

Members of the Public

Leilani Battiste, Deputy General Counsel, City College of San Francisco

Mary Ann Begley, San Francisco State Interim AVP & Dean of Students

Emberly Cross, Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic

Elise Hansell, Department on the Status of Women

Minouche Kandel, Department on the Status of Women

Maggie McHale, Department on the Status of Women

Reggie Parson, San Francisco State Police Department Deputy Chief of Police

Sophia Raynor

Jason Wu, San Francisco State Police Department Chief of Police

 

1. Call to Order/ Welcome/ Approve Agenda

Action: Approved the meeting agenda. [Mottley/ Simon]

 

2. Approve Minutes from December 13, 2016 meeting

Action: Approved the December 13, 2016 meeting minutes.

 

3. Presentation from Luoluo Hong, San Francisco State University

Luoluo Hong presented to the group, with other representatives from San Francisco State, about San Francisco State University’s approach to addressing and preventing sexual assault on campus, including, but not limited to, its effort to ensure compliance with Title IX. All cases (regarding students, staff, and faculty, as well as 3^rd parties) are handled by Equity Programs & Compliance, which reports to the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management.  At San Francisco State, the VP is also the designated Title IX Coordinator.  The San Francisco State University Police Department is also under the umbrella of Student Affairs & Enrollment Management, - one of only two of the 23 CSU campuses with this reporting structure - thereby facilitating information-sharing and increasing timeliness of this exchange.  If students are involved with other law enforcement agencies the San Francisco State University Police Department is oftentimes alerted. It was suggested that more inter-agency collaboration should be encouraged so that if an assault occurs, the reporting process would more effectively handled between law enforcement agencies.  When a sexual misconduct incident occurs involving complainants/respondents that cross over more than one campus, professionals typically reach out to colleagues at the other campus to work collaboratively to address and respond.

 

California State Universities have an executive order that mandates annual training. Online training is required for incoming/new transfer and first time students. A registration hold is put on the student’s record if the training is not completed. A separate training is also required for all employees. San Francisco State has one of the highest reporting rate for the California State University system, which it believes is due to its aggressive education and outreach efforts. San Francisco State is seeing that more training results in more people coming forward to report their experiences. 

 

San Francisco State was the first campus in the CSU to hire a full-time victim advocate, which is now required by CSU policy. The campus is not complaint driven but incident responsive.  It is interested in identifying systemic issues and risk areas and then addressing/ameliorating them.  They include lessons learned and system recommendations in its annual report.  Two years ago, a new unit was established on campus, Health Promotion & Wellness, to focus on a wide range of student health concerns, including violence prevention. This unit works with student organizations, sports teams, residence halls, etc. to engage students in dialogue about attitudes and cultural norms that support sexual violence, as well as clarify affirmative consent, health relationships and bystander intervention. 

 

Four full-time staff work in Equity Programs & Compliance, which also addresses all complaints of discrimination, harassment and retaliation – not just those related to Title IX.  Some of the biggest challenges to SF State’s Equity Programs and Compliance efforts are qualifications required for participation.  For example, only administrators can serve as Deputy Title IX coordinators and investigators.  This has been a barrier to engaging faculty – many of who would like to participate more substantively to address Title IX.  In addition, incidents of sexual misconduct, discrimination and harassment are not investigated by Office of Student Conduct when the student is a respondent, even though that Office investigates all other forms of student misconduct.  While the Title IX Coordinator and Student Conduct Administrator do consult on sanctions for incidents involving sexual misconduct, this also means that achieving a more holistic, developmental approach to student conduct is challenging

 

SF State is also finding the timelines are challenging to meet; we are all committed to resolving complaints as quickly as possible, but many don’t recognize how long it may take to go through the process in the “real world” as delays are not uncommon. 

 

The majority of students reporting tend to report to faculty/staff or those working in residential life.  With few exceptions, these persons are all required to report to Equity Programs & Compliance when they learn of an incident.  Students are informed in their on-line training and on the syllabus for every course that faculty are required to report to the Title IX Coordinator when a student discloses an experience of sexual violence, domestic violence or similar incident to them.  Once the case comes to Equity Programs & Compliance, they find that most student complainants do not want to participate in the criminal justice process and many don’t want to pursue the campus administrative process either.  The institution nevertheless provides interim remedies to ameliorate any further harm and also institute preventive measures as needed.

 

SF State recognizes the need to start prevention earlier (K-12 grades) and believes that while the initial focus on higher education was important, it was incomplete and that a more comprehensive solution is needed to a complex societal issue.  It is seeking to develop and sustain partnerships with local schools and other community-based organizations to this end.

 

4. Discussion on Data Collection

The group discussed what data they would like to see collected by the Task Force.  The     group needs to not only identify what data would be helpful to have, but also what data is not currently available. For the final report in October the group agrees data would be helpful to include. California State Universities can all provide prevalence data, campus crime statistics, and campus climate statistics.  Stacey Wiggall has access to the data from the rape treatment center that can all be broken down by demographics and has volunteered to share with the Task Force.

 

It would be important to qualify what the data means (i.e. higher rates of reporting can mean that more students feel comfortable coming forward to report, not that more sexual assault occurs on that campus)

 

It would be helpful to get data on perpetration and the relationship of the complainant to the respondent.

 

5. Updates from December Meeting and Ongoing Identification of Best Practices/ Areas of Focus

The San Francisco Colleges and Universities Information on Title IX and other policies chart has been updated and will continue to be updated as the colleges are contacted.  The group discussed the importance on focusing on early education prevention education. Although the Task Force was created to address higher education, the group would like to acknowledge the need to reach students at younger ages to make a larger impact.  The group would like to collect information on what the board of supervisors or the board of education can collect in data on sexual assault education in the middle schools and high schools. The group would like the recommendation to fund further prevention efforts in grammar and high school years to be put prominently into the end report of the Task Force.

 

6. Discussion of Materials: Further Refinement of Work plan

The group discussed the work plan and how best to organize future meetings.  The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault Guide to college presidents will be used as a framework, with its 6 areas:

1. Coordinated Campus and Community Response
2. Prevention and Education
3. Policy Development and Implementation
4. Reporting Options, Advocacy and Support Services
5. Climate Surveys, Performance Measurement and Evaluation
6. Transparency

 The following are changes made to the work plan:

· Stacey Wiggall will lead the February 28 meeting on the Department of Public Health and the SART team.

· Denise Caramagno will lead the deep dive UCSF meeting held in March.

· The April meeting will be run by Denise Sicat Wong and will focus on student views of the reporting processes on College Campuses.

· The meeting in May will focus on prevention strategies and will be held at San Francisco State University.

 

Next Meeting:

February 28, 2017, 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm