PETITION: USC Release Annual Title IX Data to the USC Community
Published December 5, 2024.
USC President-elect Carol L. Folt addresses the USC community and the media after her appointment was announced, March 20, 2019. (USC Photo/Gus Ruelas)
PETITION: USC Release Annual Title IX Data to the USC Community
DEMAND: USC Comply With U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights Resolution Agreement Case Number 09-18-6901
By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist
Link: Sign on Change.org Here!
This is not a petition published lightly; instead, it reflects more than 2 years of advocacy attempting to get the University of Southern California (USC) to meet its legal obligations. Following one of the largest civil settlements in higher education history made in response to sexual abuse by gynecologist George Tyndall, USC continues to fall short in meeting the promise of “safety and transparency” required of it by the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. Since February 2020, USC has been legally obligated on an annual basis to release “an “annual letter to the community” reflecting “a written report” from the Title IX Coordinator” to “the President, Provost, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees.” This report is supposed to provide an update “regarding the status of the implementation of the plan, including the actions taken and an assessment of their effectiveness as well as proposals for the next academic year.” Title IX is the nation’s fundamental gender equity law, enacted in 1972.
USC has only met this obligation once since then, this summer in August 2024, but only providing a single year of data from 2021-2022 to the USC Community. This petition demands that USC immediately take steps to remedy this breach by providing data from the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years. USC must then provide the 2024-2025 data once it becomes available at the conclusion of the current academic year and no later than the start of the 2025-2026 academic year. This will begin following the retirement of current President Carol Folt on June 30, 2025. USC is negligent in its legal obligations and has done a grave disservice to its students, who, most certainly, the Daily Trojan found experience a higher rate of sexual violence than occurs at peer institutions based upon the single year of data it’s released.
This data release follows the departure of Vice President of Equity, Equal Opportunity, and Title IX (EEO-TIX) Catherine Spear to lead the University of California Systemwide Office for Civil Rights in March 2024. It also follows the departure of Senior Vice President of Human Resources Felicia Washington to become Vice President of Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania. Both Spear and Washington undoubtedly were aware of this requirement, and in Spear’s case, she is on record, in writing, as being aware of it. VP Spear wrote to me on June 10, 2022, after I raised the matter with her, which is also present in University Policy writing: “We have been working with campus partners to finalize the annual letter required by the Resolution.Agreement, as well as the EEO-TIX report and plan to issue by fall 2022 in accord with our commitments.” Yet this never happened, and no such letters are available online for review.
The successor to Catherine Spear as Title IX Coordinator, Linda Hoos, now features the USC Responds report prominently on USC EEO-TIX’s website. Yet even Hoos, in an interview this September with the Daily Trojan, wouldn’t fully commit to doing this on an annual basis. Hoos readily admitted that this is the first year such data has been released, claiming the delay was due to new Title IX regulations. Yet according to the Daily Trojan, Hoos stated that only “the goal is to make this report an annual part of EEO-TIX and OPE’s work.” Whatever the excuse, this is not the “safety transparency” promised to the USC Community dating back to Rick Caruso’s pronouncement, which he characterized as “sacrosanct.” The new regulations didn’t void the prior obligations of an institution under their Resolution Agreement, a document that is designed to ensure compliance with law and protection of all members in the community.
There are an alarming amount of inconsistencies in this explanation, and in short, it just doesn’t cut it. For his part, USC’s Vice President of Professionalism and Ethics, Michael Blanton, also sought to justify the shortcomings in transparency at USC, arguing to the Daily Trojan that “seeing a higher number of reports compared to other local universities” somehow “reflects positively on the campus culture.” While the release of such information may not be much better at other institutions such as the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of California-Irvine, it’s hard to see how this logic sustains itself given that USC had many hundreds more reports of all different types in relation to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. This is a failure to implement critical reform on a timely basis, and the Daily Trojan, of course, noted that the dispute over new Title IX regulations related to “grievance procedures for reports of sex-based discrimination” is not about transparency about releasing campus statistics.
This petition has a simple ask: for USC to live up to the spirit of transparency that it promised and yet never met. USC buried its promised independent investigation into George Tyndall, seemingly unwilling to go the full measure of accountability. Similarly, since leaving USC after being retaliated against for asking questions of this nature in August 2022, I’ve continued to receive disturbing reports, including corresponding documents suggesting that USC continues to manipulate the Title IX process to its legal advantage. This is unacceptable, and it’s more than just mythmaking. Rather, it’s a breach of trust, and it’s something that the faculty and staff at USC need to come to terms with. The issue here shouldn’t be resources; USC simply can’t afford to fail in meeting its obligations. Will you or won’t you step up your transparency efforts?
USC’s still currently posted Policy on Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation, much like OCR’s Resolution Agreement over George Tyndall, similarly requires such an annual review process. It states that “The VP for EEO-TIX will publish an aggregate report of this review that protects individual privacy while still providing meaningful information to the University community.” If USC was waiting for more clarity on regulations from the Department of Education to update its policy, an entire semester has passed. Is USC short on highly paid and capable lawyers?
The last posted review date on USC’s website for this policy is May 3, 2022, after being issued on August 14, 2022, and revised on February 8, 2022. USC was previously negligent in meeting its obligations before and after the COVID-19 pandemic and only followed through with other required steps after being confronted by OCR following complaints from myself, as well as I believe others. At the time, former SVP Washington thanked “each of you for doing your part,” noting that such behaviors are not “condoned, tolerated, or enabled.”
USC please release the data sooner rather than later. It’s no secret that on campuses nationwide, the Fall semester typically sees a spike in such reports. The time for a baseline data set has come and passed; now it’s time to start showing progress. Assuredly, such a great university with its Trojan Family won’t be ashamed to release such information, even as it may show that since 2021-2022 the situation may have in fact worsened, with several high-profile incidents punctuating its terrible significance. With Washington’s departure, Interim Senior Vice President Stacy Giwa bears this administrative burden. Make no mistake though, it’s President Carol Folt and Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees Suzanne Nora Johnson who bear the responsibility for improvement.
Link: Sign on Change.org Here!
Link: OCR 2020 Findings and Resolution Agreement
Link: USC Responds: Fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment
Link: Carol Folt to retire as president of USC at end of academic year
Link: EEO-TIX, OPE release inaugural report
Link: Catherine Spear appointed to lead UC’s Systemwide Office of Civil Rights (SOCR)
Link: Felicia Washington has been named vice president of human resources
Link: USC EEO-TIX Website
Link: Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation
Link: Message from Rick Caruso, Chair, USC Board of Trustees, May 31, 2018
Link: Important Title IX and OCR Resolution Agreement Updates
Link: Announcing USC’s interim senior vice president of human resources
