The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/title-ix/page/4/)
Elizabeth McGrath, the Title IX investigator whose investigative report became public record, attempted to handle a difficult charge: to find the truth between two irreconcilable narratives.
The student says Cornell’s investigation caused him to attempt suicide.
Cornell University is once again being sued by a male student who claims he was mistreated while being investigated for sexual misconduct.
The civil rights office last week released several details related to the most recent investigation in response to requests made by The Sun and other news media under the Freedom of Information Act.
Alternative to Tapestry and Speak About It, “What would be more effective is if LGBTRC, Women’s Resource Center, A3C and other resource centers and identity groups could partner together and have a mandatory workshop during orientation week,” Scott Ho ’18 said.
Several focus group participants went on to say that the University’s Title IX investigators were slow and unresponsive. Sometimes, participants claimed the Title IX office would wait over a month before responding to complaints. During this delay, attendees warned, witnesses’ recollections of events could fade and taint their testimonies.
“That the investigation has reached this stage, at least under the current crop of OCR investigators, almost always means OCR will find something wrong.”
On Jan. 25, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights opened its sixth Title IX investigation into alleged mishandling of sexual assault investigations by Cornell, making it the university with the most active Title IX investigations. Under Title IX, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” At Cornell, that promise has come into question. The accounts of all parties involved in the recent Doe v. Roe case were unfairly evaluated under Policy 6.4, the University’s problematic policy for handling cases of sexual harassment. Cornell came under fire for instances of evident discrimination in this case.
The sixth and most recent federal Title IX investigation began on Jan. 25, bringing Cornell’s active investigation total above that of Indiana University of Bloomington, which has five open cases.
Cornell has been under pressure for its Policy 6.4 guidelines after numerous Title IX investigations were filed by the Department of Education. An increasing number of lawsuits have criticized the policy, even after it was revised in August.