"The Department of Eduction announced on Tuesday [today] that the law school [Harvard] violated Title IX by failing to properly respond to two student complaints of sexual harassment and using the wrong standard of evidence in campus cases." - Akane Otani, "Harvard Law Loses a Four-Year Fight Over Its Sexual Assault Policy," in Bloomberg Business Week, December 30, 2014. Here is that coverage in BBW.
What had been making news was this: A number of prominent members of the Harvard Law School faculty had been protesting the school's plan to embrace the university-wide system of dealing with alleged sexual misconduct. Well, they lost that high-profile battle. Through the agreement with the Department of Education, the school has agreed to align its sexual harassment policy and response to what is standard throughout the university.
Primarily the Department of Education found fault with foot-dragging in one case. In addition, in that situation it noted that the school did not conduct an "adequate, reliable, and impartial investigation." The Department's own investigation of the policy and response had taken four years.
Had Harvard Law not complied with what the Department of Education demanded, it could have lost federal funding.
Now, of course, all institutions of higher education have to be alert to what the Department of Education expects of them in processing complaints about sexual misconduct. At stake are the branding of the school and funding.
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