After two American University professors and one student filed six sexual-misconduct reports about Wesley Lowery, they said they are disappointed with the speed and lack of communication from the Office of Equity and Title IX. The Office dismissed three of the complaints saying they fell outside of the office’s jurisdiction. Lowery, a former AU professor, resigned amidst these reports.
These two professors submitted the reports on behalf of students and others working with Lowery in their roles as mandated reporters. The Title IX office deemed that three of them were not under the purview of Title IX violations, according to a Washington Post March 17 article. The Office closed a fourth report after a student denied the allegations within it and closed a fifth report after a student declined an interview.
“The result of the sixth was unclear,” The Washington Post article reads.
Students and faculty said the Office didn’t address their concerns about Lowery. According to employment lawyers and a sociologist who studies sexual violence and the Title IX system, the Title IX process is inadequate and not designed to address serious concerns.
Lowery did not respond to requests for an interview. According to a Columbia Journalism Review March 12 article, Lowery said the university never reached out to him as part of the investigation into the complaints that had been filed at that time. He said he left his positions as AU adjunct professor and executive director for the Investigative Reporting Workshop voluntarily.
Cara Kelly, an adjunct professor of journalism who filed a complaint against Lowery to AU’s Office of Human Resources, said she was unsure if she agreed with the judgment that her report did not fall under Title IX policy. She said while many of those involved have been able to move on, there is a large lack of closure in terms of the university’s accountability in this matter.
“The more that I’ve gotten into it, the more that I’ve understood it as a cover for universities to say that they do something about sexual harassment and sexual assault,” Kelly said, referring to the Title IX office. “When in reality, it is a rubber stamp to let them off the hook.”
University officials ultimately referred reports to AU’s HR office and the dean of faculty or dismissed the reports, Kelly said.
Lynne Perri, the interim executive editor for IRW and a journalism professor at AU, also filed several reports on behalf of students. She said once she filed the reports, the Title IX office would communicate directly with the students and Perri would not be contacted in accordance with Title IX procedures for third-party reporters.
“It doesn’t mean it’s not very frustrating to not know what happened,” Perri said. “And I did address this after Wesley left the university. I did have a good meeting with the Title IX office about procedures and you know, what else could be done in a situation where you feel like you’re trying to protect the student experience, and yet feel that you have no knowledge of next steps or what is happening.”
Matt Bennett, AU’s vice president and chief communications officer, declined to make anyone from the Office of Equity and Title IX available for an interview.
“The Title IX process, including intake and how it proceeds, is detailed on the website,” Bennett wrote in an email to AWOL.
Reports that fall beyond the scope of the Title IX Sexual Harassment Policy will be addressed under the university’s Discrimination and Non-Title IX Sexual Misconduct Policy, which “will address the procedures for reporting and responding to those incidents,” according to AU’s Title IX Sexual Harassment Policy.
That policy does not cover sexual harassment incidents that don’t prevent someone from accessing to AU’s programming and events, occur outside AU’s programing and events or outside the United States, according to the webpage.
When someone submits a Title IX incident report, the university is then able to provide temporary accommodations related to safety and support, according to the university’s Title IX FAQ webpage. Staff members will then contact them for next steps.
Who Title IX helps
Matthew Famiglietti, an employment lawyer, said Title IX claims can often become intertwined with human relations violations. Title IX discrimination reports regarding IRW may fall under AU’s Office of Human Relations because they involve students working under Lowery as interns, he said.
Sean Timmons, a managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC who handles employment law cases, said HR offices often aim to benefit the institution, not the employees.
“So, when people go to HR for resolution, it’s kind of like going to a customer service line that’s really not designed to help you out but to help the people who are causing the issue to begin with,” Timmons said.
Lynne Bernabei, a lawyer who specializes in sexual harassment cases, said students typically aren’t protected well in sexual harassment cases compared to other forms of discrimination.
A 2021 study published by CrimRxiv found that Title IX offices often serve the university’s interests — protecting its image and shielding it from liability — rather than centering students’ needs.
The authors of the study found that all 21 study participants experienced at least one form of institutional betrayal during Title IX investigations at their higher education institution.
Nicole Bedera, a sociologist and author of “On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence,” said institutional betrayal is a result of the universities’ actions or inactions throughout Title IX investigations.
She said institutional betrayal produces a traumatic impact that’s equal in severity to the sexual assault itself and therefore often exacerbates the emotional damage survivors face.
“We know that they’re protecting perpetrators and betraying survivors,” Bedera said. “I have yet to find a single Title IX office across the country that is doing a good job.”
Issues with Title IX Processes
Kelly said she experienced frustrations with the reporting process and communication from the Title IX office regarding next steps.
After submitting an incident report, she did not receive a record of her submission, which angered her. She said it is against the policy of the Title IX Office to share this information.
“The first really big issue that I found with this process was that there’s an online portal where you can file a report, and emphasis on the word report,” Kelly said. “It is not filing a Title IX complaint, which I did not realize until, like, eight months after I did this.”
Bedera said universities have made artificial distinctions between incident reports and formal complaints, making it increasingly hard for survivors to overcome barriers within the Title IX filing process.
She said that frequently, if someone reports to a university, they will never do anything with the report, and it will sit in a digital file despite other reports that may arise regarding the same perpetrator.
“And some universities even started deleting these reports after a period of time, even though it’s questionable whether or not that’s legal — in some cases explicitly illegal in some states,” Bedera said.
There is no evidence that this occurred to the reports filed against Lowery, or in any other cases within universities in the district. Federal law states that Title IX records must be preserved for seven years, according to the Association of Title IX Administrators’ webpage on record-keeping.
Kelly said she never received a copy of the report she filed despite asking the university repeatedly for a copy of the incident report.
“That is the only thing that I do not have from this entire experience — is that report that I submitted that night, and they will not give it to me,” Kelly said. “I have asked three times. I’ve asked repeatedly to see what I wrote, what I gave them. Just give me what I gave you, and they will not. They will not do it. They said it’s against their policy.”
What can universities do to improve Title IX offices?
Student activists, faculty and staff groups and other community organizations have developed policies for how Title IX offices should work, Bedera said. In practice, though, the offices don’t work the way they should on paper, she said. Some offices don’t follow the definition of sexual misconduct that is described in their university code of conduct, for example, she said.
Title IX offices are not staffed well enough to handle all Title IX issues brought forth on a college campus, Bedera said.
According to the AU’s Office Staff webpage for the Title IX Office, the university employs three equity and Title IX investigators who are a part of a larger staff of seven.
Additionally, the assistant vice president for equity and Title IX coordinator has changed since the time of these complaints, according to an Oct. 21 university-wide email from the vice president of inclusive excellence, Nkenge Friday.
Bedera said this highlights a broader issue of consistently circulating Title IX staff.
She said preventing sexual harm is a community-wide effort.
Professors can accommodate victims in a way that provides them proper access to safe learning environments, she said. They can allow students to switch class sections if they share a class with the perpetrator or waive attendance requirements when victims are unable to make early classes due to trauma impacting their sleep, for example.
Faculty departments can also reduce violence within their department by establishing common norms in the community regarding sexual violence and Title IX issues, she said.
“So much of the work we do is with individual faculty departments to help them figure out what parts of their department norms or policies and procedures that perpetrators can take advantage of to be violent,” Bedera said. “One of the things that researchers consistently find is that perpetrators cannot perpetrate without help, and if we can remove that help from them, and we refuse to participate in giving them the kind of power that they need to perpetrate, we can reduce the sexual violence risk really, really significantly.”
Bedera said students have advocacy power, shown in how student organizations across other college campuses have been impactful in advocating for training and other resources to foster healthy campus environments.
“And what I would say to anybody reading this on the rest of campus is that if you want something that’s more trustworthy and supportive for survivors, it’s time to build it,” Bedera said. “It’s time to build it in an independent way yourself.”
Edited by Kate Kessler, Syd Patak, Kalie Walker and Caleb Ogilvie.
