Dr. Nicole Bedera

We do sometimes see faculty who use their power as an educator to deny victims access to educational opportunities.

In the example I'm talking about, where we have this theatrical professor who is intervening in this case to support a specific male student perpetrator,

That's the kind of thing that can affect casting decisions in future shows.

It can affect whether or not the women on campus feel comfortable taking classes from that professor.

It certainly affects things like whether or not they can feel like they can go to office hours or get a letter of recommendation.

When we look at the legal history of Title IX, it's this dynamic that actually led sexual violence to be classified as a form of gender discrimination in the first place.

The case was about sexual harassment happening at Yale University, Alexander V. Yale, 1980.

The claimants in the case included not just the victims of sexual harassment, but their friends, because the faculty that were involved in these cases were giving such lower educational qualities to them.

Essentially, all women on campus, if they knew that there was the sexual harassment happening in places like office hours, they now felt like they had to avoid office hours in general.

The power disparity is such that victims are going to have a hard time getting them removed from their position, getting a new professor hired right away who will be able to give them educational opportunities.

And so it derails an entire education, especially in these interpersonal dynamics.

Okay, so I have a few answers for this.

One of the things I would say is that there is no quick and easy fix to the Title IX system if we're trying to keep it the way it is now.

There isn't one thing that I would look at Title IX and wave a magic wand, and if I made that one change, it would fix everything.

The entire system is designed to be dysfunctional and to punish survivors, to protect perpetrators.

The entire system needs revision.

In Title IX, there aren't really any good parts left.

There had been some good parts in the past, but they are largely getting dismantled or defanged.

Victim advocacy offices come to mind as a very good thing that came out of the Obama administration's approach to Title IX that for a while was allowed to continue under the Trump administration.

And now we're starting to see them close their doors or they have much more limited capacity to help survivors on campus or they're being reallocated.