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Something Was Wrong
S25 Ep7: Rethinking Mandatory Reporting and Internal Processes in Higher Education with Dr. Katherine Holland
00:53:54
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- [00:00]
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- [01:07]
Dr. Katherine Holland
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- [01:20]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
Cap apply Something was Wrong is intended for mature audiences and discusses topics that may be upsetting this season discusses sexual, physical and psychological violence Please consume the following episodes with care. For a full content, warning, sources and resources for each individual episode, please visit the Episode Notes Opinions shared by the guests of the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Broken Cycle Media. The podcast and any linked materials should not be misconstrued as a substitution for legal or medical advice. Thank you so much for listening.
- [01:59]
Dr. Katherine Holland
You think you know me. You don't know me well at all. You don't know anybody till you talk.
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Dr. Katherine Holland
Someone.
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Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
I am honored to be Speaking today with Dr. Katherine Holland. Dr. Holland's research investigates how people's health and well being are influenced by their social environments, with a focus on formal support systems, social norms, and interpersonal processes. She is primarily interested in well being around issues of sexual violence and sexual health. For example, she studies the implementation, use and effectiveness of formal support systems for sexual assault in higher education and the military. She researches the causes and consequences of both negative and positive interpersonal processes such as gendered Sexual aggression and bystander intervention. Dr. Holland also examines how social norms around gender and sexuality affect women's sexual health as an interdisciplinary scholar. Her work is guided by the fields of psychology, social law, community and women's and gender studies. She's interested in utilizing multiple research methods and using research to promote social justice and change. Dr. Holland, thank you so much for being willing to come on the show and share your expertise with us today.
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Dr. Katherine Holland
Of course. I'm really excited to talk with you.
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Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
In 2019, you were awarded the Distinguished Publication Award from the association for Women in Psychology. Congratulations. Incredible.
- [03:57]
Dr. Katherine Holland
Thank you.
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Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
Could you tell us a little bit about your background and what made you interested in entering into this field?
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Dr. Katherine Holland
My background is psychology and women's and gender studies. I completed my bachelor's degree in applied psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. And it was there that I really pursued my passion in working with survivors of trauma, sexual violence, and sexual health. I worked as an advocate for survivors of sexual violence in the er, so helping them navigate medical and legal advocacy. And I also fell in love with research. I worked in a community psychology lab. It was the first time that I really saw what research could do. It was through those experiences that was giving me a look at the way how institutions function can really have a huge impact on survivors experiences and their healing process. Also how we can potentially leverage research to better understand how institutions work, how social systems work, how communities can respond to violence, oppression, et cetera. With that, I decided to pursue a PhD. I went to the University of Michigan in their dual program in psychology and Women's studies. It was there that I actually first started studying institutions of higher education and Title IX specifically, as it relates to sexual violence and harassment on college campuses. I was always interested in how institutions respond to survivors of sexual trauma and the way that we can better understand how those systems function and how they can better support survivors in the aftermath of trauma. What introduced me to that at the time I started my PhD program in 2010, this was right at the very beginning of the sort of larger social and political attention being brought back to campus sexual violence. We had the Dear Colleague letter from the Department of education in 2011, which often gets the credit for being the first time the federal government has cared about campus sexual violence or sexual violence in schools. That is not correct. But essentially I was watching my campus responding to renewed attention to this and revamping their sexual misconduct policies and procedures. And it was actually through that process that I was watching in real time the dynamic interplay between what was happening at a federal level in terms of what are institutions supposed to be doing and then how that's actually translated into practice on my campus, and then what does that actually mean for the people within that university? So it was really the first time that I'd been in the thick of it while that dynamic action and response was happening. And that was also what got me started and interested in mandatory reporting policies, specifically because I worked as a graduate teaching instructor when I was there. And we had our little yearly training at the very beginning of the semester before we would start teaching. And as they were updating their policy, someone came and did a presentation to the graduate students in the psych department and told us, oh, and by the way, you're all mandatory reporters now. So if anyone brings up sexual violence, going to have to report it. The advocate in me went, I'm sorry, what? I will, if that's what they want, and if they don't, then that's not the action I'm going to take. It's really about finding what it is that survivors want and need and then helping leverage the resources to help get them that outcome. And this was especially salient for me because I teach psychology of gender. I also taught women's health. Very frequently we would teach about sexual violence and sexual harassment and would commonly have students give disclosures in the classroom, for example, or talk to me about it. And so I went to go a look at the policy and I found out we were not actually required to report sexual harassment or assault. I forget the exact wording, but it was something like we were strongly encouraged to do so. And then that sent me down the whole road of understanding mandatory reporting policies. It was the first time that I'd ever really been exposed to a mandatory reporting policy in that way, where we're talking about legal adults, whether we're talking about students, whether we're talking about employees. That was the thing that triggered me to start focusing on Title IX and mandatory reporting policies as a specialty.
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Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
Within that, it's interesting to me that Both you and Dr. Badara, who actually recommended that I speak with you. Thank you. Dr. Badara, that you both started out as victim advocates. How do you feel that the experience as an advocate influences your work today?
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Dr. Katherine Holland
That was really at its core what brought me to this work in the first place. It drives everything that I do. From the kinds of questions that I'm interested in, in studying from the kinds of actions, whether that would be empirically informed, data driven policy practices, prevention programming, basically anything that I would hope to see come out of my research, I also see that as being really strongly aligned. At least that's what my goal is. I always want to bring it back to the foundation of my advocacy training, which is really thinking about what does a trauma informed response to violence look like and what are some of the essential pillars of that. It comes back to the importance of autonomy and control and being able to make well informed decisions. That was one of the primary things that I was really passionate about in my advocacy work, is helping survivors understand what are the options available to them, what are the things that they want to be able to pursue. So it's really about providing as much information as you can to help empower survivors to be able to navigate the next steps in their recovery and response process. I see that as really serving as a foundation of the direction that my research goes. I also see that playing a big role in the way that I actually design and collect my data. So, for example, I do quantitative work, but a lot of my work is also qualitative in nature, putting participants at the forefront and their experiences and knowledge as not something that I'm trying to just get from them, but really seeing them as the sort of core central component of generating the kind of knowledge that we need to be able to craft better policies and better reporting and response systems, better resources.
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Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
Your recent publication in 2018 was titled Advocating Alternatives to Mandatory Reporting for College Sexual Assault. So I'm curious what the data reflected in terms of mandatory reporting and what some might find surprising.
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Dr. Katherine Holland
That's a great question. Because I see myself as a feminist psychologist, I'm deeply rooted in victim advocacy. And often when I talk to people who are not really in the field, some folks will get surprised when they find out that I am anti mandatory reporting. They're like, I thought you cared about victims. It doesn't take much time for me to explain what mandatory reporting actually means and what it looks like for them to quickly realize, oh, so this isn't often the best way that we respond. Specifically, within this context of higher education, following federal Title IX guidance, and this has been for many decades, universities have designated some of their employees as mandatory reporters for sexual harassment and sexual violence. And it has fluctuated over the years. Who is or is not designated within that role. Universities for a very long time have had a lot more discretion as to who they were going to put within that role. Although my research has found that most schools, and especially the more sort of traditional four year public and private, not for profit institutions, are especially likely to make just all of their employees Mandatory reporters. The problem is, is that on its surface, this sounds like a good thing to a lot of people. Well, don't we want the university to be taking action, to be responsive to sexual violence when it happens? But the issue is I always like to say that a mandatory reporting policy is only as effective as the system that you were reporting into. When the system itself, and in this case the Title IX response process, generically I usually call it the Title IX office, though it comes under many different names at different universities. But essentially the system that is tasked with responding. So that can include anything from conducting investigations or formal grievance procedures, conducting or facilitating any kind of informal resolution processes, coordinating supportive measures. They're often at least now seen as a sort of one stop shop for response. But the problem is they are not a victim advocacy office. And so you're putting survivors into a system that does not have their best interests at heart. By design, they are there to ensure that the institution is compliant with federal policies and practices that have been increasingly overtly hostile to victim survivors. Putting someone in contact with that system when they don't want it, when they're not ready for it, can be extraordinarily harmful, can result in secondary additional trauma. In a lot of the studies that I've done with survivors, they'll frequently describe it as more traumatic than the assault that they experienced, that actually navigating that system was worse. Even if they responded wonderfully, even if there weren't problems with it, I would still say that it needs to be survivors decision if that is the choice that they want to make. Because again, if we're going back to the root advocacy, it's really that survivors being able to make well informed decisions for what's going to be best for them in their life. So the other little piece of this is, is that often I'll hear the response from Title IX practitioners or just other folks, they don't have to participate in those processes. And while that might be true in my work, I find that institutions of higher education will often do anything and everything they can to not initiate formal grievance processes and try to resolve issues in a way that doesn't put them at increased risk for some kind of liability or initiating a response procedure that would actually require some kind of action or sanction against someone who's been engaging in that behavior. The problem is though, is that even if that is true, at the end of the day, the university still gets to decide they have ultimate control over the decision of whether or not they bring a formal complaint or not. It's called a university driven complaint where even if the survivor does not want to participate, they can still choose to move forward with that. And while they can't force the person to participate in a hearing or interviews or things like that, they are still essentially taking a wrecking ball to that person's life. Where they are talking to the witnesses, the perpetrator then knows these sort of campus climate means that is someone where someone often lives. This is also where they work, it's also where they go to school, it's where the vast majority of their friends and their support system is. And then you start completely running through every single person in their life. Pretty soon they turn around and it feels like there's no safe place for them to be. That's why I have such an issue with mandatory reporting. Well, it's just one of the reasons. I have many reasons, but that's a really big one. A lot of times I hear this sort of idea of we're the ones who can provide things like supportive measures and referrals to resources. But even then, those are not frequently actually that useful for survivors healing. Oftentimes when you're talking about referral to resources, they're handing them a list of the same campus resources that they can easily find online. There's no sort of rhyme or reason, it seems behind the scenes of when they do. And they don't help facilitate things like academic accommodations where for some folks they will help navigate with their teachers with that. And other folks they're like, well, sorry, that's out of our hands, go talk to your instructor. That's one of the primary reasons why mandatory reporting seems like we have a zero talents policy. But then if you actually take a look at what it is that you are reporting into, there's much more effective ways to be responding to sexual violence and trauma. That's one of the entire reasons why victim advocates exist and are trained because they don't just let anyone be a victim advocate for someone. You have to undergo extensive training to be able to understand that at its core is about centering that person who's experienced the violence. And that's just not what a Title IX office is. They are not putting the survivor at the center of what they do.
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- [17:36]
Dr. Katherine Holland
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- [17:43]
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- [17:46]
Dr. Katherine Holland
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- [17:53]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
Several stories this season involve significant power imbalances such as sexual harassment and assault by a professor. How does power operate psychologically in these relationships, even when there's no explicit threat?
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Dr. Katherine Holland
You're right, that is extremely common, the sort of things that institutions investigators are often looking for. What evidence of coercion do we have? And the problem is, take as the example of an advisor for graduate students. Even if there are not those explicit coercive threats, bribes, whatever happening, that person holds an immense amount of power over your training, and that's your entire future career. When you're talking about master's or PhD programs, the faculty members are responsible for helping students navigate that program, helping them gain the kinds of experiences and skills that are needed to then pursue a career in the future, they are often serving as your direct employer. So for example, if the faculty member has a grant and you're working under them, that is how you're making your living. If a survivor were to actually speak out about it, it's often not very difficult within those communities, for all of a sudden they become the problem rather than the perpetrator, who in a lot of cases has been engaging that behavior for a very long time. A lot of the things that don't come out as an explicit threat. So even though they might not say I'm going to fire you as my graduate research assistant unless you X, Y or z, that threat doesn't have to be stated for it to still be there. It can make it really challenging for students to be able to navigate what happens next. Another problem too, is that because master's and PhD programs, for example, are so highly specialized that could potentially be the only faculty member in that department who has the area of specialty that they study and that they need training in, and that they are then trying to get a job in afterwards. And it just raises so many complicated barriers that can make it very challenging for students to feel capable or comfortable being able to speak out about what's happening or engage in some kind of formal reporting and response process, especially if they believe that if they do engage in some sort of formal reporting grievance procedure, that nothing is actually going to happen as a result of it. I once had a survivor describe it along the lines of something like, well, basically I just blew up my life for nothing. Because when it does not actually result in their favor, then they're basically left, in some cases, they feel like in a worse situation than they were in which they were experiencing that violence and that trauma.
- [20:47]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
How do you feel institutional betrayal or harm impacts survivors different than other types of trauma?
- [20:55]
Dr. Katherine Holland
I think the sort of answer to that, for me, lies in the fact that institutional betrayal as a theory grew out of the idea of betrayal trauma theory, Jennifer Fried's original work, and thinking about how the people that are closest to us, it can be both very difficult to be able to sort of recognize and navigate when you might have love and trust for the person who is doing you deep and terrible harm. Institutional betrayal is not exactly that, but that's where its roots come from. For example, in a lot of cases, the survivor is both going to school, their job might be part of the university. So their lives are often so deeply enmeshed within that community, they become too trust it. And universities do a lot to build a sort of brand that people can see themselves as deeply connected to. They do a lot to be able to build that sort of emotional connection with the students. So that's one piece of it, right, Is that they often play just a very strong component of their life. But then the other piece of it is these formal response systems and processes are often in theory, there to protect the students and employees, the people who work or go to school at their institution. It's there to protect against potential things that they might experience and to be able to offer support so that a student can continue with their education. At its core, Title IX is gender equity law. It's making sure that everybody has equal opportunity to access and pursue an education. The hope then, is that those reporting processes, these institutional structures, would function to make sure that if something was complicating someone's ability to fully thrive within their educational environment that they would then be able to step in and help restore what had been taken away. But unfortunately, that is just often not the case. And that tends to be well known within the college community. Whenever I do interviews with survivors or other college students, it's always this sort of like, word of mouth. A friend of mine or my friend's friend went through that and it was absolutely terrible. The word on the street is don't go to Title ix. And I think for me, the harder part is that I often hear institutions frame their Title IX office as this one. Stop shop for anything you could possibly need related to sexual harassment and violence. At its core, it's about providing support to people that is just not the case. The sexual misconduct training that I have to do at my school, and this isn't created by my school, this is one that is sold to other institutions do this as well. But the little module is called Report Equals Support, exclamation point. This is the message that is often getting pushed, is that this is a place where you can go to for support. So then if someone believes that that is the place where you should theoretically go to for support, who should have your back, but you know, they don't, then it's almost worse. It's this sort of illusion when you're walking in the desert and you see the mirage. It's supposed to be there, but it's not. And I think that's one of the things that makes that betrayal feel so harmful. It's the very prominent feeling of being let down. You can imagine how things feel could have gone differently, but yet they didn't. And I think for me, that's why it's so damaging and problematic for policies like mandatory reporting policies, or why sort of funneling everyone and everyone through the Title 9 office is just not the answer when it comes to providing the best kind of support to survivors. Because the way that it was created and especially the changes that we've seen in recent years. So, for example, following the 2020 Title 9 regulations under the first Trump administration, it's just not a place that is designed to respond well to survivors and in a lot of ways is designed to intentionally make it more difficult for them to try to pursue any kind of formal.
- [25:15]
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- [26:19]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
How would you describe the current state of our Title 9 Systems Effectiveness?
- [26:25]
Dr. Katherine Holland
In so many ways, it's not being effective. One of the primary findings that we see across the literature, including my research and others research, is that the responses that are in place are failing survivors at essentially every turn. There might be individual cases where a survivor feels that they had a good interaction with an individual Title IX practitioner or someone that was helping to coordinate their supportive measures, like navigating extensions on exams in their classes and things like that. You have well meaning Title IX practitioners who are wanting to try to do a good job. So you have individual one off cases where things might go. But by and large those are rare and they are also not evidence that the system is actually working. Because if we take a look at the current state of things, the evidence that we do have is that formal grievance processes are very rarely resulting in any kind of finding of responsibility. That's the term that they use within that is that the person is either responsible or not responsible for violating their school's Title 9 sexual misconduct policy. It's very rare for someone to be found responsible. And even for those that are, it's actually quite rare to see any kind of sanctions that actually remove the perpetrator from campus, whether that would be termination of employment if it was an employee, or a suspension or expulsion if it was a student. I can't tell you how many different cases I've heard where essentially the case was drawn out over years until the perpetrator just graduated or left on their own. Because we are now back under the 2020 Title IX regulations from the Department of Education that really broke from prior precedent in how institutions could run investigations in grievance processes, I have A paper that I published with Kawarthra, including Dr. Badera, where we analyzed the preamble in the 2020 regulations to look at the explanation and justification for requiring live adversarial direct cross examination as part of formal grievance procedures. And that was different than prior guidance. Where previously schools didn't have to direct cross examination, that it was sufficient to protect due process. To have questioning happen through an investigator, both parties need to be able to present evidence, witnesses, to know what's happening, and then also to be able to ask and answer questions. But it didn't have to be in this sort of like mock courtroom, trial type system. The entire rhetoric around the requirement for this live cross examination was at their core, sexual harassment and assault complaints are seen as not credible, that this is the best way to test victim credibility and to identify ways that you can poke holes. Because these allegations are seen as not credible, survivors and victims are seen as not credible. And so this is what we have for the formal grievance processes that are currently available. I have not talked to a single Title IX practitioner who thinks they work well for anyone. And I argue that that is the entire point, was to create a system that was overtly, directly hostile and designed to minimize the number of formal grievance processes that institutions were investigating. Unfortunately, I think that in a lot of cases now, you have sometimes, well, meaning Title IX practitioners who then sort of use this as a reason to sway survivors away from formal grievance processes where, oh, it's going to be really traumatic and, oh, it's going to take a really long time, and do you really want to do this thing? Then you have the options that are available where we have some sort of informal resolution process that we know very little about. There is very little empirical data on what do those informal resolution processes actually look like? How are they actually working? Are survivors satisfied with those processes? And additionally, what are the outcomes of them? Are those the outcomes that survivors were hoping for? And I will note that the outcome of informal resolution cannot include requiring termination or punitive measures. If the survivor wants to not share campus space with the perpetrator, wants the perpetrator to not be there, then automatically informal resolution is not going to offer that. We know very little about what's happening within those or how well they work. So we look at what I consider to be the sort of like three legs of Title IX office response. What are the things that could happen, whether that's formal grievance, whether that is some kind of informal resolution, whether that's some kind of supportive measures. We basically have failings at every single one of those legs. The evidence that we have the most common, quote, unquote supportive measure that's given is referrals to resources. And that typically is often just a list list of resources that are available. Or we could potentially change housing situations. We can facilitate non contact orders. That's often sort of pitched as something that would help keep them out of each other's sphere, preventing contact from happening. But those are also frequently not consistently applied. Where I have found at the same institution we'll have, one survivor was like, I wanted to have help navigating accommodations in my classes, but they were like, no, we can't do anything for you. Then you have another survivor who's like, oh yeah, it was really helpful. They helped me navigate my class situation. I was able to move dorms. And then finally, the issue of no contact orders gets extremely tricky within this context. Because the no contact order isn't just that the perpetrator can't contact them, it's that they can both not have any contact with each other. And so the perpetrator will then often find ways to say that the survivor is the one who violated no contact orders and actually use it as a way to make that person's world even smaller. In my research, violations of no contact orders, very rarely anything happens as a result of them. Survivors often say, I went and I told them, they continue to stand outside my dorm, or this person continues to follow me a class, or oh, they're still messaging me on social media and they're kind of like, well, what can we do about it? I think that another issue that I have with supportive measures and even just this entire process, the 2020 regulations were also the first time that they introduced the idea that supportive measures also need to provided to the respondent. This is the name that they call for the person who was accused of sexual assault or sexual harassment. The framing of that is essentially saying that it is because these were things that were offered to people who had experienced sexual harassment or violence to be able to help remedy what had happened and restore their equal access to education. And by then requiring supportive measures to people accused of sexual assault is then saying that being accused of sexual assault means that you then no longer have equitable access to education. It really does paint very clearly, along with the increased concerns around due process protections and the sort of push for Title IX, practitioner and institution interpretation of Title IX policy, this idea that we need to be neutral. It's not that a survivor comes in and we are going to put them at the center of what happens next. It's the survivor comes in and now we need to be equally prioritizing and caring about the person who they just named as their harassment. We need to give them protections. And a lot of cases, they have far more due process protections. When you actually analyze schools policies, those are some of the sort of core problems that I see with the current state of Title IX response in higher education. There were problems far predating the 2020 regulations. They have never worked very well. And I will say that the current state that the policies are in have moved it from not working very well to continuing to not work very well. And are also more overtly hostile for victim survivors and also now have introduced very clearly this idea that perpetrators are the ones really that need to be protected within these systems.
- [34:52]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
Many of the stories that we are going to hear from survivors this season involve athletic departments, theater departments, Greek life, and some data seems to support that there is higher rates of sexual violence within these systems. Why do you think that is?
- [35:13]
Dr. Katherine Holland
That's a good question. I think within some sub communities, within institutions of higher education, in some cases this is true for things like Greek life athletics. There is often this sort of hegemonic masculinity, gendered power dynamics and processes at play within those communities that very much create the kind of environment where sexual harassment and sexual violence can flourish. Additionally, any kind of sort of sub community or area where there are fairly strict hierarchies, you'll also see this sometime within hospital systems or within the military, when you have a very clear hierarchical power structure that also can lend itself well to creating the kind of environment where sexual harassment and violence can flourish. And it's very difficult for change to occur because of the power and privilege that a lot of perpetrators are holding within those communities.
- [36:18]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
Why do you think there are so few expulsions or sanctions or termination of employment within these systems?
- [36:28]
Dr. Katherine Holland
One of the reasons at its face level is that reports that are made to the Title IX office, that's the sort of like, first contact that happens, Whether that is a mandatory reporter who makes it or whether it's the survivor who makes it themself, very few of them actually translate into any kind of formal grievance process. A punitive response being terminated or suspended. A formal grievance process has to occur for that outcome to happen. And so the fact that most of them don't result in that means that automatically that is off the table as a possibility. The other piece is that very few formal grievance Procedures actually result in a finding of responsibility. And so if the person is found not responsible, then they won't be introducing any kind of punitive type measures. There are not a lot of institutions that would come right out and say this, but if they do let the person go, if they expel them or if they terminate them, they risk opening themselves up to a lawsuit from that person. And if they're trying to avoid litigation, then that's going to be a reason right there. I think that if you sat down with the people who serve on the hearing board, who makes the determination about what the sanction is going to be, I don't think they would say, I don't know, is this really a problem? But when you have a system that is designed at every turn to push on and push up against the credibility of a survivor, and there's a lot of empathy that's given to perpetrators in these processes. A lot of times we hear this idea of like, we don't want to ruin his life, or, oh, he has such a promising career ahead of him. They're all so young. It's the first time they've ever had to navigate these things. How could they possibly know? While I don't think it's anyone would want to come right out and say, well, I just don't think that sexual assault is really that big of a deal. At the end of the day, they think that what happened isn't really quite bad enough to potentially get someone fired or potentially have them expelled from school. Here's a great example. This is actually one in which they came right out and explicitly said it. So a survivor in one of my studies went through the formal grievance process. The student who had sexually assaulted her was found responsible. And then the hearing board, who was determining the sanctions for him sexually assaulting her, they suspended him for just the rest of the semester. They were already halfway through the semester. And the reason that they gave was that they thought that the assault could have been worse. Essentially it wasn't severe enough to expel him. And that was something that was so traumatizing for her. She was like, this has completely upended my entire life. And you're sitting here telling me that it could have been worse. And so I think this sort of larger cultural minimization of sexual violence and the normalization, frankly, of harassment and violence makes it systems of empathy more likely to empathize with men. Really concern about men's ability to continue to thrive and live their lives. And especially when you're talking about younger men Worrying about their careers and futures and stuff. I think that this whole thing comes together to create a situation in which they don't actually believe that sexual violence, Even if they 100% believe that it happened, actually think that that justifies kicking someone out of school or firing them for their job. And for me, that really comes down to the larger systems of, as I said, the normalization and minimization of sexual violence and patriarchy.
- [40:03]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
Some of the survivors we spoke with this season described retaliation after reporting. What have you learned in your research about how frequently that happens and how that can impact a victim surviv finishing school?
- [40:18]
Dr. Katherine Holland
It's both a really common fear that can prevent someone from actually reporting in the first place or prevent them from pursuing a formal grievance process. But then, as you said, when they actually go through with it, will often experience that retaliation that they're concerned about. There's a couple of issues that frequently will come up. One is that it's very difficult for them to often prove the retaliation. The kinds of actions that Title IX practitioners at institutions tend to look for, the things that are happening, it's not the F for the grade or the denying someone of a promotion. There was an example of a faculty member who had gone through with a sexual harassment complaint and was experiencing retaliation as a result. And when she would bring the examples to the Title IX office, they would say, were you denied a promotion? The person that was retaliating against her, she was a faculty member, and this was a colleague. In no way does your colleague, one individual, other faculty member, gets to determine whether or not you get promoted. So, like, that in and of itself, is just not even possible. And so I think that part of the problem is that the type of forms that retaliation often takes, that the institution is often not willing to sort of recognize as being retaliation, Even though on paper it says retaliation is prohibited and you're not allowed to retaliate against someone in practice, what that actually looks like is often something that they are wary or hesitant to take any kind of action on. As a result, you have survivors then having to try to navigate that themselves. That can result in things like not taking certain classes because the perpetrator is going to be in that, or they switch majors. Their friend group gets extraordinarily small. They're not able to talk to anyone anymore because of the kinds of behaviors that they're experiencing. And in some cases, they end up leaving the institution altogether and potentially starting a new university. So I think that the evidence is pretty clear that there is fairly inadequate adequate response mechanisms for responding to retaliation.
- [42:40]
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- [43:44]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
For students who are from marginalized communities, what does the research that you've done show about the nuances that they experience while navigating the Title IX system?
- [43:57]
Dr. Katherine Holland
The institutional structures are really rooted in the way that they are created by design, are at least not helpful, and at worst overtly hostile towards victim survivors. That is doubly true for survivors from marginalized community, where the system that is in place, the cases that it tends to work best for, is going to be the most privileged of people that are navigating that system. I think some of the unique issues that are faced by survivors from marginalized communities one is that there may be prejudice or stigma held within the people who are responding, for example the Title IX practitioners or coordinators, the dean of students or the hearing board members, whoever it is that they're interfacing with within this system, may hold problematic ideas about members from that group. One example from a survivor for one of my studies, it was an LGBTQ student, and when they were reporting their experience to the Title IX office, the Title IX investigator told them something along the lines of don't worry, I'm not going to hold your lifestyle preferences against you in this case, and by stating right there, it is already biased. So it's those moments of microaggressions that happen within those systems. Some of the other things that can be really tricky for folks from marginalized communities, and this is especially true thinking about students of color at primarily white institutions. For example, it's a smaller community on campus. The perpetrator happens to be someone with a connection to or within that community, then there can be additional pressure that they experience from others within that community to not move forward.
- [45:52]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
I'm curious what nuances you've seen for victim survivors when the perpetrator or respondent is a staff member of the university in terms of how that individually impacts the victim survivor.
- [46:07]
Dr. Katherine Holland
There are a number of different things that can be difficult, especially when it's someone who is in a position of power, a very highly valued member of that community. You can think about how football or athletics is one great example where if they're a highly beloved coach or athletic director, it's not that they don't want to believe that it's going to happen, it's that if that is true and then we have to do something against this person, that's also true for faculty members. If it's a tenured professor having that job security, there's a lot of very useful, beneficial things that go into that. Unfortunately, it is also something that can make it difficult to remove a faculty member who's a sexual predator. And if they're a highly valued member of the community, so say that faculty member is considered a real sort of star in their field, they bring in a lot of big grants. We're talking about a lot of money that the university is getting because of them. It's one of those cases when they might believe the students. And a lot of times with those folks, we're talking about many students over many years that even though they might realize it's true, at the end of the day, the person who is a more valued member of that community is going to get the benefit of the doubt more frequently. Do we really want to lose a faculty member who brings in so much indirect money? Do we really want to, like, oust our beloved coach, who we're really counting on? Because football culture or basketball culture, whatever it is on your campus that is so prominent in the community that it basically becomes this sort of cost benefit analysis. And when they hold the position of power, it also makes it a lot more difficult for survivors to come forward. We can think about, like Larry Nassar as one very prominent example where it takes over many, many years and many, many, many survivors. Just despicable that it takes so many people for it to actually to sort of tip over. Speaking of mandatory reporting, I would have people who would hold up the Nassar case as a pro. Mandatory reporting of you know, if people had come forward, wouldn't that have helped solve the problem? And in fact, he had been investigated by Title IX people had already reported it did not solve that problem, nor would it.
- [48:16]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
I'm curious if you have come across any research about the media response and how it impacts victims when a civil case is filed or it reaches the media.
- [48:29]
Dr. Katherine Holland
I will say that I have some evidence from faculty, staff and students who will mention the media response as something that clued them into problems with their school's Title IX system. Those media cases will often be what clues the community in so that there is something wrong with the system. There's a research lab at Michigan that was collecting data from media articles related to that and how that related to schools sexual misconduct policies, what actually ends up happening for schools, policies following larger media coverage of specific cases. Because sometimes it'll be like a reactionary thing where a case will come out, it blows up, there's negative media attention, and then the school's scrambling to try to do something to update their policy or redo their systems. I mean, that was one of the ways that a lot of schools like universal mandatory reporting policies that makes just everybody a mandatory reporter, all of the employees, has sometimes come up as a result of more high profile cases that have happened. And then in the scramble afterwards to try to solve the problem, that's often something that's sort of slapped on as an idea that that's somehow going to fix the issue, when in reality the issue was the system that you're reporting into.
- [49:39]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
What would you want students to know about their rights and what they should consider when considering reporting?
- [49:49]
Dr. Katherine Holland
A couple of pieces that I really think it's important for students to know is who are the people on their campus who they can speak to in confidence? Schools designate some supports as confidential. Who are the people on campus who they designate as mandatory reporters and who don't they if they're thinking about potentially interfacing with the Title IX office? I always encourage students to reach out to and bring an advocate with them, whether that is a victim advocate or whether that is another faculty or staff member who is knowledgeable about the system. There's some evidence to suggest that survivors may have some better experiences when they have other people at the university or in the system on their side to be able to back them up. And so bringing someone else along who is able to help them navigate that process and help to take in information I think is really important. I also think that survivors should know that they are allowed to ask for things that are not written down on paper. If, for example, they're wanting some kind of supportive measures that they should feel able of asking for things that are not down on paper, it's not a problem to ask, ask for the things that you need. In other cases, I think institutions do a much better job of being creative in how they're able to support people who are experiencing trauma. There's a really great study that was done just a couple of years ago and they were comparing the kind of supportive measures that were offered to survivors in schools, Title IX policies, compared to the supportive measures that were offered to students who suffer a sports related concussion. And the most common supportive measures for survivors in Title IX policies were all things that it would essentially reduce their access to education, like making it easier for them to withdraw from their classes. There were things for the students who would experience a sports related concussion were all kinds of things like facilitating remote work, a slow return process, things that would actually help them stay in school. Are there ways that they can facilitate that for other students? In other cases, the main thing that they sort of give you is to ask for what it is that you want, need, but then also you shouldn't have to be the one to just on your own come up with that. Which is why having an advocate or someone on your side to be able to help you navigate and understand and brainstorm what it is. Because sometimes it's like, do you even really know what it is that you want? And so that's the place where I think that schools need to do a much better job of offering this sort of bare minimum of what's possible. The other thing that I would say is if they are wanting to move forward with a formal grievance process, that if their school doesn't automatically allow for the direct cross examination to happen remotely or via zoom, so you don't have to be in the same room that you should definitely ask for that. I think also asking a lot of questions, gaining more information ahead of time. What would the formal grievance process look like? What would the informal resolution process look like? What are the outcomes that could be possible of those things? Because I think that one of the biggest problems, and Dr. Badera talks about this in her work, is that a lot of times students and survivors don't have the information that's available. That puts Title IX practitioners in a really great position to be able to push that person towards whatever it is that they want. Ask for an established, clear communication from the people in the office. That's one of the Other big problems that come up is that there is a great lack of communication and transparency about what is happening at the process. And so having whatever investigator or Title IX coordinator who they're working with to establish up front what kind of schedule and how you want to be contacted and the frequency at which you want to be contacted with updates, making sure that there are clear expectations for the kind of communication that you want and not feeling bad. Are they busy? Sure, that's their job. I don't care how busy they are. There should be a clear established communication that's consistent across survivors. Those kinds of things I think are really essential. And that's also where I think that having an advocate to help navigate policy language, those policy expectations. And I think the last thing I would say is also don't feel bad if going the formal grievance process is not right for you. I think that a lot of times survivors feel a lot of pressure. It can be a really admirable thing and something that can be very meaningful for survivors. It's such a selfless thing that happens a lot where they're like, I'm going to put myself through this because I don't want someone else to have to experience this. I want to try to protect other people from what I experienced. And I think that that is fantastic. What worries me is when that attitude starts to get adopted by other people who like, well, wouldn't you want to make sure that this wouldn't happen again? Wouldn't you want the mandatory reporter to report it? Look at what's happening here. At the end of the day, for me, this individual person's wants and needs and timeline needs to be at the heart and the center of every single decision that happens afterwards. Which is why black and white kinds of policies and responses are just not going to work. Because at their core they are not survivor centered. There is not a one size fits all for survivors. The last thing I'll say is if they're concerned about the kind of support that they might get on their campus, if they're concerned about the campus based victim advocates, for example, finding community supports outside of that, organizations like End Rape on Campus or Know youw 9 can often be helpful for navigating information. There's often student groups. It's On Us is another example of one that often has campus based chapters. And so finding the organizations outside that can help identify information and think about your options and processes. Victim advocacy organizations in the community can really be helpful as well. Some of them might not be as familiar with the intricacies of the Title IX process, but there might also be people in those organizations who that is sort of their specialty.
- [55:55]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
Thank you so so much not only for that information, but for being willing to speak with me and educate all of us. Where can we follow and support the.
- [56:04]
Dr. Katherine Holland
Work that you do? My lab website. I have information there about what I do with my contact information. I will often contact encourage students and faculty and staff and other advocacy groups. I'm always open to answering questions or speaking with folks. I've also served as an expert witness before for Title IX litigation. I'm always willing to help lend some expertise and so my contact information is available there for my research. I always make sure that my Google Scholar profile is up to date that has all of my current publications which has this work. And if you're at an institution or if you're not able to actually access those, send me an email and I will send you a PDF of anything that you need. If you're looking for something that is behind a paywall, thank you so so much.
- [56:46]
Podcast Host (Tiffany Reid)
You are incredible. Thank you for the important work that you're doing, the important research you're doing. Thank you so much to each and every survivor and guest for sharing their experiences with us, and thank you for listening. Something Was Wrong is a Broken Cycle Media production created and executively produced by Tiffany Reid. Thank you endlessly to our team Associate Producer Amy B. Chesler, Social Media Marketing Manager Lauren Barkman, graphic artist Sarah Stewart, and audio engineers Becca High and Steven Wack, Marissa and Travis at WME AudioBoom and our legal and security partners. Thank you so much to the incredibly talented Abiomi Lewis for this season's gorgeous cover of Glad Rag's original song you Think youk from their album Wonder Under. Thank you to music producer Janice JP Pacheco for their work on this cover recorded at the Grill Studios in Emeryville, California. Find all artists socials linked in the episode notes to support and hear more. If you'd like to share your story with us, please head to Something Was Wrong dot com. If you would like to help support the show, you can subscribe and listen ad free on Apple Podcasts. Purchase a sticker from our sticker shop@broken cyclemedia.com Share the podcast with a loved one or leave us a review. Want to stay up to date with us? Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Something Was Wrong podcast. As always, thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe friends.