Title IX report exposes California State University system failure in harassment cases

California State University is paying the law firm Cozen O’Connor more than $1 million for an assessment of its Title IX and Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation departments and in a report on Wednesday the CSU Board of Trustees heard what an interested party on any of its campuses could have told them for a five-buck cup of coffee.

The system and campuses in the largest public university in the nation struggle with a lack of resources, policy, personnel, education, training and follow-through, which engenders a lack of accountability and trust.

The Cozen O’Connor report came with broad recommendations, but also a core list of observations. That list included an infrastructure that is insufficient to consistently carry out care and compliance responsibilities at most of the 23 universities; that they are impacted by a lack of resources, aggravated by instability, transition and overload and hindered by an insufficient records management system, all of which leads to insufficient institutional history and accountability.

The assessment included visits to all of the campuses in the CSU system as well as the chancellor’s office, and a survey that received more than 17,000 responses from students, faculty and staff and administrators.

“In recent years the examples of unprofessional at least and criminal at most behavior, the examples and the stories that have come to us have been shocking,” Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, an ex-officio member of the board, said at the conclusion of the presentation by Cozen O’Connor.

“If we take this report today and we continue to get failures, that to me is unacceptable. So taking this report today, recognizing that this is a high-level list of recommendations and real change will come with operationalizing these recommendations into real reforms, I can say that as an ex-officio member of this board and as someone who is put on this board to make sure that the public trust is represented, that to me is now the marker that we are laying down.”

Cozen O’Connor will issue a formal report that will be released in June along with reports on each of the campuses in the system, including Fresno State.

The implementation team at Fresno State will be co-chaired by vice president of administration Debbie Adishian-Astone and dean of undergraduate studies Bernadette Muscat. Adishian-Astone oversees the university’s human resources and Title IX offices, and Muscat headed the sexual harassment task force launched last April by university president Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval.

“As with honest and clear-eyed self-reflection, many of these report findings are difficult to hear,” interim CSU chancellor Jolene Koester said. “Their recommendations are daunting and complex. They require that we drive change in process, policy and most importantly in culture and this change is going to be uncomfortable, but that is why the board commissioned Cozen to do this work. We are not going to steer away from the discomfort and the need for change. We’ve got a vision here, we have a set of recommendations that move us from where we have fallen short to a new and better university system.

“We’ve been shown a path forward. All of us, all of us, presidents, chancellor’s office staff, chancellor, administrative leadership, faculty leadership, faculty governance units, student leadership, student’s governance leadership, staff leaders, staff governance leaders, unions and each and every individual member of this large university system has to get on that path. The reality is this work is going to take time. It’s going to require us to confront deeply rooted and underlying social issues, but we commit to the work, We lean into it, and our work begins now.”

Does CSU have resources to fix Title IX issues?

Resources, however, will come into play in what will be a corrective process that Cozen O’Connor and CSU officials said will take years.

Gina Maisto Smith, who led the Cozen O’Connor team, detailed for the board how far behind some of the CSU campuses are, and its impacts.

“How do we do more with less is the constant question everywhere,” she said. “One example, a Title IX coordinator also oversees on one campus human resources, equal opportunity, DHR, whistleblower and Clery and that one person is supported by one individual for a campus of 10,000 students. We also observed of the 23 universities, 19 of them have their Title IX, DHR functions combined and four do not. Staffing levels range, rules and functions range, name of the program ranges, portfolios range, reporting lines and supervision range and on most campuses there are not enough people to do the work that they are assigned.”

Fresno State has a director of Title IX and Clery compliance and a full-time deputy DHR administrator.

“The impacts are plain,” Maisto Smith said. “We cannot consistently demonstrate care and implement core compliant functions. Timeliness is impacted. Overall effectiveness is impacted. Perception of the process is impacted. The ability to engage in strategic, proactive and preventative work is impacted and that overall leads to diminished trust in the system, in the university, in the office, in the administrators and that diminished trust leads to barriers to reporting.”

That lack of resources will be a challenge for the CSU system, but cannot be an excuse, Kounalakis said.

“We know that there are a lot of competing factors for funding,” Kounalakis said. “What I would be so disappointed (in), is if there was sort of a dismissal of being able to institute change because people can hide behind a notion that there wasn’t enough funding. As the campuses, and of course the office of the chancellor, look to implementation, utilizing resources that we already have to be able to follow these recommendations I think will be very important. And, having communication across the campuses of best practices, what is working and what isn’t is working, is going to be very important.”

Kounalakis was followed addressing the board by Leora Freedman, CSU vice chancellor for human resources.

“The chancellor’s office Title IX and DHR staff is also planning to help the implementation teams develop their structure and their timelines, so there will be timelines and accountability,” Freeman said. “That’s part of the rollout of this. Of course, we can’t control behavior, so there will always be incidents. Our goal is to improve the way we respond to them.

“I understand your concern about funding. We all share that. But we certainly don’t intend to hide behind limitations. We’re going to do the best we can, but there’s only so much you can do with limited staff.”