Part 84: The Longest Title IX Case at USC – Sexual Violence and Corrupted Investigations

Published March 1, 2024. Updated March 2, 2024.

Photo of Felicia Washington USC’s senior vice president of human resources from USC website (Steve Cohn).

Please support my work with your subscription or for direct aid use Venmo

By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

What may be perhaps the longest Title IX case in the history of the University of Southern California is fast approaching a conclusion as the process continues toward a scheduled Live Hearing later in March. I met “Jane Doe” in a café to discuss the case for the first time, my prior reporting has been simply taken from the telltale signs of an intentional elongated process. The young woman became a victim of sexual violence at USC as a prospective student and the accused has long since graduated. The question of whether or not she would go through Live Hearing or instead agree to a Resolution process without one was on the table.

The USC EEO-TIX office, standing for equity, equal opportunity and Title IX, the nation’s fundamental gender-equity law for educational institutions, including private colleges and universities, was eager to press the case forward. Contacting the Jane Doe, at legal term used to conceal the victim’s identity in court proceedings, the EEO-TIX official wrote in a formal memorandum titled “RE: Notice of Partial Dismissal” that the “Respondent” the technical term for the accused, “who was a University student at the time…alleging potential violation of the Policy on Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation (Policy)” before getting down to the legal business. Would there be a Live Hearing, and if so on what “potential Policy violations.”

USC wants the Jane Doe to drop one of the three listed allegations from the bullet pointed – “Title IX Sexual Harassment” “Sexual Assault” and “Sexual and Gender Based Harassment” and you better believe it was the “Title IX” part to establish that “jurisdiction” did not exist under the footnoted “Title IX regulations” which “apply to specific forms of sexual harassment that occur in an education program or activity in the United States, including sexual harassment in the form of sexual assault, dating and domestic violence, or stalking.” The footnote further explained: “Where conduct occurs outside of the education program or activity, outside of the United States, or would not meet the definition of Title IX Sexual Harassment, the University is required to dismiss any allegations in a Formal Complaint under Title IX.”

The sexual assault had occurred off-campus after the Jane Doe was contacted via digital message, DM as they say, by the accused perpetrator on September 6, 2021, but was it outside the “scope” as the memorandum detailed that would warrant dropping what seemed perhaps legally the most important allegation. The promised Live Hearing would occur via Zoom, but it had only come after she came forward with her story leading to the first report on this subject on December 7, 2023 with a plaintive email coming from the investigator just over 10 days later on December 18. “Jane Doe, I hope this email finds you well,” it began as usual before the investigator wrote: “I write to sincerely apologize that you have not received a recent update in this pending EEO-TIX matter.”

The initial report had been made on December 20, 2021 months after the assault after the victim had worked up the courage to report following receiving an anonymous message in her social media DMs filtered out of her regular inbox alleging that the accused had engaged in seducing and drugging his victims with marijuana. There was another Jane Doe, number 2, perhaps, but the sender had already been deleted so the account could not be tracked. This was enough for Jane Doe number 1, and she had gone ahead with making the report despite knowing that the accused was not only a top student, but also maintained a significant public profile. She was afraid of him, and for this reason, and because as she informed me in the café, he had already been speaking negatively about her to others for reporting seeing the messages forwarded from a mutual friend.

In the Resolution Process, the second track for “Title IX Sexual Harassment, including Sexual Assault, Dating and Domestic Violence, and Stalking; Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment; Nonconsensual Viewing, Recording and Dissemination; Exposure; Other Forms of Dating and Domestic Violence; and/or Retaliation relating to Sexual Harassment” defines the Live Hearing as: “cross-examination by the parties’ advisors, and (2) rules that limit what evidence that may be considered in making a determination of responsibility.” It wasn’t clear how that would feed into the “Evidence Review” and “Investigation Report” that was supposed to occur prior to the Live Hearing itself. The clock was ticking on USC to produce proof that an investigation had in fact occurred, and so the seeming response was to after more than 2 years put the burden of proof on the Respondent to show that it was in fact a Title IX case under USC’s jurisdiction.

The alleged assault had occurred off-campus, but her visit to the campus as a prospective student, which led to the unfortunate incident didn’t happen on USC’s property, but was it part of the educational program’s activity? I wasn’t sure, and with the clock crunching the best thing to do seemed to be spotlighting the issues at hand in the hopes of bringing forward others. Separately, the accused had also been subject to a separate attempt than the first one which brought her forward in an attempt to expose the accused as a prolific perpetrator. In seemingly trying to eliminate the complaint through an elongated process, USC has not interviewed Jane Doe 1 until a month after her December 20, 2021 report until January 25, 2022 waiting again until August 18, 2022 to have her give an interview that “reaffirmed” the complaint.

USC finally on September 20, 2022 issued a Notice of Investigation signed by USC’s VP of EEO-TIX Catherine Spear. The assigned investigator in apologizing for this delay claimed that “In the past academic year, EEO-TIX  has had a very high volume of matters, as well as conducted a high number of hearings pursuant to the Resolution Process for Sexual Misconduct,” he wrote in the December 18, 2023 email. “Nonetheless, we appreciate that not receiving status updates as to the next steps in the process can be stressful.” As part of the Live Hearing, the investigator detailed out the process after offering a “University-appointed Hearing Advisor at no cost.” First she would “concurrently receive access to review the Investigative Report and submit a written response” that would in turn be “shared with the Independent Hearing Officer, who will be the decisionmaker in this matter” before observing that Winter Recess was imminent.

Well, Winter has come, and now as the Jane Doe considered her response and I patiently listened in the café interviewing her about the experience and offering her the best words that I could muster on the Title IX process and what the legal process after might look like should she choose to pursue a case for “Deliberate Indifference” as it’s known in legal terms, we both knew. USC under pressure from both the Jane Doe and myself in pursuing comment, which was received, fear that USC’s intentions here might not be so pure. After making her wait nearly 2 years to even get to the scheduling of a Live Hearing they were not quick to prove that the case had nothing to do with USC, and was in fact outside of the scope, beyond their jurisdiction.

Would USC even provide any investigation report, much less the evidence she had provided? In this game of chicken, she wasn’t sure that she could face the accused, would he even show-up? She wanted clarification, should she even try to establish that this was in fact “Title IX Sexual Harassment” with its sweeping list of violations, or was it was Linda Hoos, the Associate Vice President and Title IX Coordinator just “Sexual Assault” and/or “Sexual and Gender Based Harassment.” Should she appeal the decision to let USC define the parameters without any further review or consideration of an appeal” “Should either party appeal, the appeal will be handled prior to the live hearing.” Handled by whom was unclear, leaving some questions.

Despite my extensive experience in considering these matters from my former position in the Office of the Provost, and living them to a degree as both a Respondent long ago, and a Complainant more recently, the University’s culture can be vexing. One thing is for sure, this case has taken so long, and has such a clear motive for delay, that you can’t help but feel as I’ve previously written that a case like this is the definition of corruption in the Title IX process. To get closer to the truth as part of this investigation, I recently interviewed three now former counselors in the University’s Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Services office, acronym RSVP. The off-record conversations conducted without notes while covering the on-going protests against the Church of Scientology were disturbing.

By the third interview, I outright asked the counselor if USC was “failing its students” and she affirmed it without hesitation describing how one persistent student had left her wondering just how rampant these types of highly questionable cases were in their caseloads, totally 30-50 students each. USC only rarely holds perpetrators accountable, the best estimation was that this is the outcome in 0% to 5% of cases. USC pushes students to resolve formal complaints with non-punitive Alternative Resolution. The truth is that no one knows for sure, and to date, I’ve only heard of 2 cases even remotely going the full distance through a Live Hearing to a “Notice of Outcome” and a “Sanctioning Panel” which “convenes if there is a finding of responsibility to determine an appropriate sanction” that remains subject to an Appeal process.

There are three grounds for Appeal: “(1) procedural irregularity. (2) new evidence, or (3) conflict of interest or bias.” Even then, the “Appellate authority [is] determined by status of Respondent. Even if the Jane Doe were to prevail, would she have grounds for claiming “procedural irregularity” given the length of process, or would USC simply deflect claiming that it simply had too many complaints to deal with, and would the Respondent even be subject to an appeal given that he had graduated? I can’t imagine this is the first time that a prospective student was sexually assaulted, but could this be the first in higher education where the Live Hearing didn’t occur until long after the accused had graduated? Moreover, in apparently refusing to address the complaint on a timely basis, the Federal recommendation is two months, had other women simply become victims too of the Respondent.

According to the three RSVP counselors, the trend was so clear that they had trouble believing that USC’s Title IX office was remotely serious about addressing sexual violence on its campus. In fact, they told me how USC’s prior RSVP Director had seemingly been forced out and then paid-off to be silent about what she had allegedly repeatedly objected to, the deliberate elongation of the Title IX process against certain students, often based on their protected characteristics, but also fame and power as in this case, that it was in fact a complete abuse of process. USC certainty isn’t the only institution struggling with these issues, but is it the baddest kid on the block? USC has already paid over $1.1 billion dollars in legal settlements to victims of George Tyndall.

Moreover per the RSVP Counselors, USC began to skirt its obligations as soon as it could following specific changes required by both the civil case settlements as well as USC’ Resolution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. The types of gamesmanship that I myself had experienced in pushing a claim of retaliation and harassment forward against USC were not unheard of, in fact, they were downright familiar. Reportedly, the current director of USC’s RSVP office has also been subject to complaints for harassing and discriminating against her own employees. Short of getting someone directly from within the Title IX Office to come forward with the same systemic allegations, I wasn’t sure what else to do other than share the news at this point. I don’t think anyone is imagining things, it’s still about the legal interest at USC in dealing with these questions.

USC refused to discuss the case of Jane Doe 1, and I’m not sure how they would respond to these claims given that last semester they insisted that USC is far surpassing its legal obligations with OCR even as stories like these surface. In my own case, there was no indication that after 3 months USC had made OCR aware of my case, and they sure don’t seem to be aware of Jane Doe 1, otherwise how would they allow such an absurd state of affairs. One RSVP counselor told me that in her best opinion, USC simply waited too long, too often in launching Title IX investigations. None had heard any word about OCR actively monitoring USC’s Title IX office or the counselors who support the victims its supposed to be protecting from further abuses, including retaliation through subversion of the Title IX process.

Last year, USC quietly cut the overnight per diem pay to $7.50 per hour, the Federal minimum wage for the RSVP counselors while on-call and not actively assisting students. This led to a staffing exodus that to the three RSVP counselors didn’t seem unprecedented. Similarly, USC’s Title IX office has continued to see regular turnover as Spear heads into another year following her arrival in August 2020 after working at Stanford, the University of Virginia, and for OCR itself. USC is supposed to issue an annual letter providing some insight into this process and its outcomes after its February 2020 agreement signed by then Chairman of the Board of Trustees Rick Caruso and USC President Carol Folt and presented to the USC community with a video message by Senior Vice President for Human Resources Felicia Washington.

“I want you to know that while all of you are doing what you do at USC each day, President Folt’s senior leadership team is learning from USC’s past and designing for our future,” Washington assured the community before introducing herself. “If you haven’t met me, I’m Felicia Washington, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, I joined USC in the summer of 2019,” she says, continuing noting that “Just recently my new role expanded to also oversee Title IX and Ethics and Compliance in addition to more traditional HR functions.” Washington promises to work closely with Folt to “implement systems to provide the highest level of service and care for our community members” after claiming to support students and staff. Noting the Tyndall OCR Resolution Agreement, Washington promises USC will take “remedial actions” before hoping that we will “read this information which details some of the changes we’ve already made as well as those that are underway.”

The fact that this is still occurring in Rick Caruso, Carol Folt and Felicia Washington’s USC speaks to not only the under fulfillment of these promises. In meeting with the victims of George Tyndall when we got to the part about how the administration has reacted to them questioning the lack of justice that would have been served by a criminal conviction, the answer was simple: “Shoo fly, go away” one said with a laugh.

Whether Catherine Spear can finish shooing away Jane Doe 1 remains to be seen, and whether I can find a Jane Doe 2, much less as 3 and 4 and so forth against the case Respondent remains to be seen, but I don’t discount the stories automatically. Washington says that USC’s leadership is “committed to learning from the past to inform the future.” Well SVP Washington and VP Spear, please consider yourself now very informed; things still aren’t right at USC, and the alarm bells should be ringing.

Link: OCR 2020 Findings and Resolution Agreement

Link: EEO-TIX Resolution Processes

Link: Felicia A. Washington: OCR Follow-up Address

Link Felicia A. Washington

Link: Catherine Spear

Link: Sexual Assault Prevention and Survivor Services

 Please support my work with your subscription or for direct aid use Venmo

Zachary Ellison is an Independent Journalist and Whistleblower in the Los Angeles area. Zach was most recently employed by the University of Southern California, Office of the Provost from October 2015 to August 2022 as an Executive Secretary and Administrative Assistant supporting the Vice Provost for Academic Operations and the Vice Provost and Senior Advisor to the Provost among others. Zach holds a Master’s in Public Administration and a Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Policy and Planning from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. While a student at USC, he worked for the USC Good Neighbors Campaign including on their newsletter distributed university-wide. Zach completed his B.A. in History at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon and was a writer, editor, and photographer for the Pasadena High School Chronicle. He was Barack Obama’s one-millionth online campaign contributor in 2008. Zach is a former AmeriCorps intern for Hawaii State Parks and worked for the City of Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation. He is a trained civil process server, and enjoys weekends in the great outdoors.