Timely Warnings & Sexual Assault: Building an Effective and Consistent Approach Abigail Boyer | Clery Center Joseph Storch

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Timely Warnings & Sexual Assault: Building an Effective and Consistent Approach Abigail Boyer | Clery Center Joseph Storch | SUNY System The Clery Center Jeanne Clery Act: A History

Changing the Landscape • History of Campus Safety • Connie & Howard Clery • Parents • Co-founders, Security On Campus (SOC) • Legislation (state, federal) • Advocacy • Awareness raising • Impact Agenda

•Timely Warning & Emergency Notification Overview • Mythbusting • Lesson Learned: Program Reviews • Activity

Timely Warning Overview Background Knowledge

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your understanding of the requirements of the Jeanne Clery Act specific to timely warnings? 1-2: Novice 3-4: Some familiarity 5-6: Competence 7-8: Mastery 9-10: Expert

Jeanne Clery Act: Overview

Annual Security Report •Policy statements •Campus crime statistics •Campus Sexual Assault Victims’ Bill of Rights Ongoing Disclosures •Emergency notification •Timely warning •Public crime log U.S. Department of Education (ED) Enforces

Jeanne Clery Act: Overview

Violence Against Women Act Clery Act Crimes Amendments to the Clery Act • Homicide •Dating Violence •Sex Offenses •Domestic Violence • Robbery • Stalking •Aggravated Assault • Burglary Arrests & Disciplinary Referrals •Motor Vehicle Theft •Liquor law violations • Arson •Drug law violations •Hate crimes •Illegal weapons possession

Who is a CSA? •Officials with significant responsibility for student and campus activities •A campus police or a campus security department • Individuals or offices designated to receive crime reports •Individuals who have responsibility for campus security

Examples of CSAs

•Professional staff in a dean of •Student activities staff students office (including •Faculty or staff advisors leaders in student to student organizations affairs/housing) •Resident Assistants •Staff in student center building • Coaches

Violence Against Women Act Amendments to Clery

March 7, 2013 March January 2014 – April October 20, 2014 July 1, 2015 President Obama signed the Negotiated ED published the Final regulations Violence Against Women rule-making fnal regulations became effective Reauthorization Act, which for the VAWA amended the Clery Act to amendments to Clery include dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking Current Landscape

2013 VAWA Student Activism Amendments to Clery & Media Scrutiny

Title IX White House & OCR Guidance Task Force

Timely Warning Policy Overview

•What are timely warnings • How to alert the campus • What information to be included • Decision to alert • Exempt cases (privileged communications)

Timely Warnings & Emergency Notiﬁcations

•Two methods of notifying college community about events that impact their safety. •Significant technical and policy differences. •Significant policies/bureaucracy required to implement. •Technical compliance matters (see Virginia Tech program review).

Handbook Chapter 6, page 97

Timely Warnings Policy Components

A timely warning policy should address the following components: • Circumstances that trigger a warning • Who issues • Dissemination process/channel

Circumstances That Trigger Warnings? ✓ ® Clery Act crimes •Included in annual statistics ✓ ® Reported to CSA or local law enforcement ✓ ® Occurred in the specified geographic areas: • On-campus •Public property • Non-campus ✓ ® Represents a serious or continuing threat • Students • Employees

Timely Warnings

Case by case basis considering all facts surrounding occurrence of a crime, including: •Nature of the crime; •Whether the crime presents a continuing danger to the campus community; and •Risk of compromising law enforcement efforts. When you issue: •No mandated format; distribute in a manner that gets the word out quickly (active, not passive). •Include in warning information to enable community members to protect themselves.

Decision To Issue A Warning

•Specify Who Is Responsible •Individual (Title) • Department/Office •Consultation Process •Open Communication •Case-By-Case Basis

Timely Warning Dissemination Process

•Must be quick (timely) •As soon as pertinent information is available • Community-wide •Likely to reach the entire campus community •Aid in the prevention of similar crimes •Specify methods •SMS text messaging •E-mail, social media • Posters •Other methods and/or combination of methods

Timely Warning Include

•Information that promotes safety •Allows individuals to protect themselves •Time, location and type of crime •Must not identify a victim; May identify a perpetrator or suspect •Some items to consider

Exempt Cases

•Crimes Reported to: •Pastoral or professional counselor •Privileged Information Protected by State Law: •Medical doctor • Attorney/client

Emergency Notiﬁcation

Institutions must: •Have an emergency notification policy; •Test it at least annually; •Assess the results of the test; and •Publicize the system and policy. •If issue emergency notification, need not issue timely warning.

Handbook Pages 97-110

Emergency Notiﬁcation

•An emergency notification is “required to immediately notify the campus community upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of students or employees occurring on campus.” •Issue an emergency response notification upon confirmation of an immediate or impending threat to the welfare of the campus community (confirmation does not mean all pertinent details are yet known). •No prescribed manner or language provided it is complete, accurate and easy to understand (active, not passive).

Emergency Notiﬁcation

Policy/Procedures Include: •Procedures institution will use to immediately notify campus upon confirmation of a significant emergency or dangerous situation involving immediate threat to health or safety of students or employees occurring on the campus. •Description of the process institution will use to •Confirm existence of significant emergency or dangerous situation •Determine appropriate segment or segments community to receive notification •Determine content of the notification •Initiate notification system

Emergency Notiﬁcation

•Statement that institution will determine content of notification and initiate system: •Without delay •Taking into account safety of community •Unless issuing notification will compromise emergency response efforts (mandatory statement per Handbook page 102) •List titles of those responsible for emergency response notification process •Institution’s procedures for disseminating emergency response information to larger community •Institutional procedures to test the emergency response and evacuation procedures on annual basis and publish test results (specifics in Handbook p. 106-110).

Timely Warning/ Emergency Notiﬁcation

Timely Warning •Narrow in scope – Clery Act crimes only (minimally). •Crimes that occurred in past but constitute ongoing threat. •Anywhere on your Clery geography. •To be issued as soon as pertinent information available. Emergency Notifications •Wide focus – any emergency. •Currently occurring emergencies or ones that pose imminent threat to campus community. •On Campus property only. •To be issued upon confirmation of a dangerous actual or threatened situation.

Compliance Tips

•Assign tasks, and reflect those assignments in Clery policy statements.

•Avoid arrangements that require higher level approval to issue warnings.

•Train supervisory staff to issue warnings/notifications in the absence of command staff.

•Document steps you take.

•Test the systems at least annually.

Timely Warnings Myths

•MYTH: You must issue a timely warning for every sexual assault • MYTH: You must include the location of the assault in that warning • MYTH: You must include the details of the case (referral to law enforcement) • MYTH: You do not need to include consultations in your policy (e.g. President’s Office, Communications)

Findings

•“Failure to Comply with the Timely Warning Requirement”

• “Lack of Adequate Policy Statements”

Common themes: • Distribution of warnings • Proper coordination of CSAs • Consideration of whether to issue awarning • Incomplete policy statement (even if policy or practice exists)

“Annie”

•Annie discloses to her tennis coach that she was raped by several members of the basketball team in a room in the student center after a game •She states that she had attended the game intoxicated and was blacking out and could not consent to any of the forced sex acts upon her. •Annie is in a sociology class with several other basketball players, none of whom she believed were involved in the sexual assault. •Annie goes to her academic advisor to report that the players who are in her class are mocking her about an assault that she reported and she feels uncomfortable and unsafe. She states that she doesn’t know what to do. •Over the next three weeks, two additional students report sexual assaults by members of the basketball team, only able to name one of the multiple players. Both students report that the attacks happened on a campus building, one in a room in the athletic center and one in the student center.

Timely Warning

• Would you issue a warning for this case? When and why or why not?

• If you select to issue a warning, draft it.

• If you select not to issue a warning, document why. Timely Warning

University Police Issue Timely Warning

University of XXX Police Receive Report of a Sexual Assault

On the morning of February 3, 2014 the University xxx Police received a report from a female tennis player that she was sexually assaulted by a group of student-athletes. The student has requested to not proceed with a investigation at this time and University of XXX Police are respecting their decision and are not investigating this incident. Timely Warning

University Police Issue Timely Warning

University of XXX Police Receive Report of a Sexual Assault

On the morning of February 3, 2014 the University xxx Police received a report from a student that they were sexually assaulted by a group of students. University XXX takes allegaons of sexual violence seriously. Timely Warning Language

•In response to this incident, the University of XXX Police Department is providing the following information on acquaintance sexual assaults. •(Note: This information is general and not incident specific.) •If someone chooses a police investigation, we will investigate, provide support, and offer related services. Sex offenses are treated with seri- ousness on our campus; criminal and/or severe disciplinary action can be taken (including suspension or expulsion). There are free confidential resources to support victim/survivors through both the criminal and university disciplinary processes. Compliance Tips

•Use care in issuing Timely Warnings. •Longer messages/very technical language are less likely to be read. • What can the reader do with this information to keep themselves safe? •Avoid victim-blaming language. •Avoid safety information that is unrelated to the types of violence occurring (keep doors locked for an acquaintance assault). •Boy who cried wolf. •If not covered by a Timely Warning, don’t call it Timely Warning (e.g. Campus Update). •Timely Warnings are not a replacement for VAWA Campaign.

Submitted by Institution - Case #1

• A report of sexual misconduct is received over the weekend, reported by a resident assistant. • Very little information is given in the report that the Clery reporter can access because the resident assistant forwarded the details of the incident to the Title IX Coordinator only (because the person wants to remain as anonymous as possible). • The Title IX Coordinator is not on your Timely Warning team. As the person who sends out the Timely Warnings, all you know is that an assault took place and the time. You do not know the exact location (but assume it was on-campus because a resident assistant reported it) or if the parties knew each other. Questions - Case #1

• What is the role of Title IX in this process?

• How long should/can the timely warning team wait to get the information before making a determination? Case #2

•A report comes in through residence life staff that two female students (A & B) who live in dorm 1 came in together to report that a male student (C) who lives in dorm 5 has subjected each of them to unwanted sexual fondling, on separate occasions. On each occasion, one of the female students was in the male student's dorm room late at night after socializing with other students, who had left and the male suggested it was too late for the female to walk back to dorm 1 alone. •On the first occasion, A fell asleep on the floor and woke to C "pressuring" her to get into the bed, which she eventually did. She woke to discover C caressing her breasts and moving his hand to her genital area. She was afraid and pretended to be asleep and he eventually stopped. She stayed till morning and C acted like nothing had happened. Case #2 (Continued)

•On the second occasion, B remained in C's room after friends had left and C pressured B to sleep in his room with him. B was initially resistant but eventually agreed. C pressured B to sleep in his bed with him and again she initially said no but in the end agreed to. C stripped naked before getting into bed. B remained clothed and told C that "nothing would happen" between them. B awoke during the night to find C removing her bra and she "froze and let him do what he wanted", then asked him to stop and they both went to sleep. •Did these two incidents of forcible fondling by the same person constitute a pattern and require a timely warning? •Would the answer change if C was immediately suspended and barred from campus pending an investigation and determination? Case #3

•A student made a report to her professor that she would be missing class and stated she was raped. •The professor reported the incident to the Title IX office, who in turn notified the campus police. At the time of the initial report the professor did not know where the crime occurred. •The Title IX office contacted the student and tried to get more details and offer services. The student was not interested in speaking with anyone at the university and the only additional information they received from the student involved the location. The Title IX rep asked if the incident took place on campus, and the victim stated yes. The university was not able to determine if the victim knew the perpetrator or any of the circumstances surrounding the incident. Case #3 (Continued)

The victim was very reluctant to speak with the university and the Title IX office was really wanting to give the victim more time to become comfortable with the university and speak with them about the incident and hear about available resources before making her even more reluctant with the issuing of a notification. This caused a conflict with the campus police knowing of a Clery crime, reported on what appears to be Clery geography and the need for a timely notification. The campus police ended up waiting another half a day and the victim ended up speaking with the university and we found out that the crime did not occur on campus, but in privately owned apartments in close proximately to campus. • How do we find a balance between a reluctant victim with the need to notify? Start With The Basics

• What is our approach to timely warnings?

• Who is a part of my team for determining if we issue a warning?

• Who isn’t involved that should be?

• Are we consistent? Case #4

• Female student (Jane Doe) and male student (John Doe) have been hanging out and getting to know each other. One night, they are at a party and Jane has a lot to drink. The two go back to her room and she doesn’t remember anything until the next day when she wakes up in the morning. John Doe is gone and she is certain that, based on the fact that she is naked and how she is feeling, they had sex and she doesn’t remember it. She tries to text John but he doesn’t answer. Jane sees her friend a few minutes later and her friend tells her that she heard her and John in her room laughing. She also said that she was in the bathroom with Jane the night before helping her when she was vomiting. Jane and John had no more contact that spring. Jane also said that sometimes when she gets blackout drunk her friends don’t even realize it. Case #4 (Continued)

•This incident is reported shortly after it occurred. Student tells her dean that she was sexually assaulted the night before and refuses to give any more details. • Should this incident result in a timely warning? • What about if the incident doesn’t get reported until the following fall, when Jane talks to John and John admits they had sex?

Department of Education Resources

•OVW Campus Website- FREE Clery Self-Assessment Tool • www.changingourcampus.org • Handbook for Campus Safety & Security Reporting • https://rems.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/handbook.pdf •VAWA Amendments to Clery Final Regulations • https://www.federalregister.gov/ articles/ 2014/10/20/2014-24284/violence-against-women-act •Clery Act Program Review Reports • https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/clery-act-reports • ED’s Campus Safety and Security Reporting Training • http://www2.ed.gov/campus-crime/HTML/cc_on/Contents.html Clery Center Programs

• FREE Hazing Prevention video, PACT5 Sexual Assault Film, Alarming Truth Fire Safety •Jeanne Clery Act Training Seminars • Online •Regional Training Events

•National Campus Safety Awareness Month (NCSAM)

•Collaborative Program •Education (webinars, trainings, etc.) •Resources (online library, member website) •Networking & Support (workshops, technical assistance) •Self-Assessment (comprehensive tool)

Joseph Storch, Esq. [email protected] Clery Center for Security On Campus www.clerycenter.org Facebook.com/CleryCenter Twitter: @CleryCenter Abigail Boyer [email protected]