California committee recommends sweeping reforms to campus sexual harassment policies

The California Assembly Higher Education Committee released a report and recommendations Thursday on how to address sexual harassment and discrimination across the University of California, California State University and community college systems.

The report pinpointed deficiencies and policy limitations in the state’s public higher education systems and highlighted a ‘deep level of mistrust’ on campuses. Among its recommendations: holding campus executives more responsible for addressing sex discrimination on campus, and creating independent offices of civil rights for each system that would include a Title IX coordinator and deputy coordinator.

Each system’s office would be independent from the Title IX offices at the various campuses of the University of California, California State University and community college systems and would report directly to the governing boards.

The committee’s work and recommendations are in response to years of mishandled sexual harassment and other cases in the California State University system that led to the resignation of former chancellor Joseph I. Castro. Reports from the law firm Cozen O’Connor and the California Sate Auditor last year found the CSU lacked the resources to carry out Title IX care and compliance responsibilities, adequate prevention and education infrastructure and had a glaring trust gap with students, faculty and staff.

Each new system office would be responsible for creating and adopting a blanket non-discrimination policy for the entire system, including procedures for how to handle Title IX and California Sex Equity in Education Act complaints.

Each office would handle complaints against a campus president, chancellor or chief executive officer. It also would provide training and best practice guidance for campus-based or district-based Title IX offices; develop a prevention education strategy including bystander prevention, policy awareness and assault prevention training.

The legislative committee called on the state to support efforts of its higher education systems to prevent sexual discrimination on campus and recommended an oversight hearing of the Budget Subcommittees on Education Finance in the Senate and Assembly to determine implementation costs.

“Establishing the systemwide offices of civil rights and many of the campus recommendations from the report will come from the state’s General Fund,” Assembly Higher Education Chair Mike Fong said, in a statement to The Bee. “While we are facing a significant budget deficit this year and establishing the recommendations may be costly, everything that requires fundamental change is, and the alternative is a cost I’m not willing to incur.”

The 31-page report from the committee also noted that none of the higher education systems include a review of campus leaders’ plans to address sexual harassment and discrimination as part of the performance evaluation process.

It recommended the University of California, California State University and community colleges require an annual evaluation of each campus leader’s action plan to prevent and address sex discrimination on campus, that the evaluation be made available for public comment and be included in performance and salary evaluations.

At the campus level, the committee recommended every UC and CSU school have a Title IX office staffed with a Title IX coordinator, a deputy coordinator, case manager, investigator, prevention education coordinator and an administrative assistant, and that every community college campus have a Title IX deputy coordinator and a prevention education coordinator. Each community college district would have a Title IX coordinator, a case manager, and one investigator for each campus in the district to assist campus offices.

The staff of each Title IX office is to have no other responsibilities other than to prevent and address sex discrimination complaints.

At Fresno State, the existing Title IX office directory lists a coordinator, a deputy coordinator who also is director of student housing, an administrative assistant and two staff members.

The State Center Community College District has a Title IX coordinator and four investigators, according to a district spokesperson. At the campus level, Fresno City College has a Title IX coordinator and six investigators, Clovis Community College has a coordinator and four investigators, Reedley College has a coordinator and eight investigators, and Madera Community College has a coordinator and three investigators.

The committee also addressed issues that have eroded confidence at 149 campuses across the state (10 in the University of California system, 23 in the California State University and 116 in the community colleges) including different grievance procedures across systems, monetary settlements with offenders and policies governing retreat rights for university administrators.

Retreat rights provide faculty members who give up tenure to take administrative positions such as president, dean or provost the ability to retreat back to a faculty position.

Castro, the former president at Fresno State, resigned as CSU chancellor in 2022 and exercised retreat rights to the Orfalea College of Business at Cal Poly.