Earlier this week, The Eagle broke the story to the AU community that AU is one of 104 schools under investigation for Title IX violations related to handling of sexual violence. The investigation was first opened on March 11, but was only reported as a news brief on the subscription service Politico Pro on the morning of March 18, a week later. The Eagle has since learned that the school’s Title IX compliance officer, Dean of Students Robert Hradsky, knew about the investigation the day it was opened. Members of the administration were aware of the complaint for a significant amount of time without informing students.
About an hour after The Eagle published its initial story, Hradsky sent a memo to the student body about the investigation.
The timeline of these events is curious, and regardless of actual plans, the resulting appearance is that the University swept the issue under the rug for as long as possible. Those with the knowledge did not even inform Student Government President Sophia Wirth, whose main advocacy issue has been sexual assault.
Despite these failures in communication, this is not an entirely bleak situation. In fact, an inquiry from the Department of Education could be a good thing for students overall. Now that we are under investigation, we can simultaneously uncover wrongdoing in the way our school handles sexual assault and incentivize better treatment of survivors. Ultimately, it will hold us accountable in making real efforts to stop sexual violence on campus.
AU is fond of playing up things that can be put on brochures, like green initiatives and sexual assault prevention programs. The University has made some significant strides in this second arena, with the rollout of the StepUp program and the hire of survivor’s advocate Sara Yzaguirre. But the fact remains that the conduct process for suspected perpetrators is unclear. This makes it seem as if when dealing with sexual assault, AU does things that look pretty, without making any real systematic changes.
This is a bigger issue than just the Title IX investigation. It is clear that cultural issues surrounding assault are a major problem on campus. We need to take this opportunity to examine, as a community, if we are really making our campus safe for all students, whether we are preventing assault or following the disciplinary process after one occurs. The attitude among whoever chose to withhold the information for a week only harms the people who need this investigation most.
The University created an awful image for itself, and a bad environment for students, by not coming out in front of the issue. -E
