2025-050 Campus Sexual Harassment

Recommendations to the CSU Chancellor’s Office

Recommendation 1

To ensure that complainants who wish to engage with a campus Title IX office have every opportunity to do so, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by January 2027, revise their sexual harassment policies or related guidance—and provide accompanying training or support as needed—to direct campus Title IX offices to do the following:

• Briefly document the office’s rationale for using or not using contact methods other than university email, such as a phone number or personal email address, to reach a complainant. At minimum, the offices should document this brief rationale for any report alleging sexual harassment that could result in an alternative resolution or investigation and that the office intends to close without formal action primarily because a complainant has not responded to emails. As part of this rationale, the office should also consider whether it is appropriate to communicate with third parties who are aware of the case and familiar with the Title IX process by taking steps such as reaching out to a mandated reporter or CARE official to confirm a complainant’s contact information or to ask about the complainant’s interest in engaging with the office.

• During intake meetings, ask complainants for their preferred email address and ask whether they are comfortable receiving a phone call or text message as a secondary option if at some point they do not respond to the office’s emails. The offices should document the results of these questions, including the email address and phone number as appropriate. The offices should also consider incorporating these questions into their forms for reporting sexual harassment, if the forms do not already include them.

Recommendation 3

To ensure that campus Title IX offices consistently address respondents’ alleged behavior and reduce the risk of its recurrence, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by January 2027, do the following:

• Revise their sexual harassment policies or related guidance to set a clear expectation that campus Title IX offices should consider holding and documenting educational conversations with respondents for cases they close without formal action. The policies or guidance should include examples of factors for offices to consider when they decide whether these conversations are advisable, such as the complainant’s wishes and safety, the severity of the allegations, and the likelihood that a conversation could help prevent future misconduct. The policies or guidance should also require offices to document a brief rationale when they decide a conversation is unnecessary for a report that names a respondent affiliated with the campus and includes allegations that, if true, would violate the sexual harassment policy.

• Provide training—along with templates or other guidance, as needed—to help campus Title IX office staff execute and document educational conversations effectively. For example, the systems could share UC Irvine’s approach to holding and thoroughly documenting its policy compliance meetings.

Recommendation 5

To improve campus Title IX offices’ communication with complainants and reduce barriers to complainants’ participation in an investigation, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by January 2027, revise their policies or guidance, conduct training, or take other steps to provide campus offices with direction and strategies for making timely decisions about approving or not approving a complainant’s request for an investigation and for informing the complainant about that decision as soon as possible, even if that communication is informal. The system offices should include examples of situations that could warrant expedited approval of a request for an investigation, such as if the campus has already begun the alternative resolution process and the complainant requests to end that process and instead pursue an investigation.

Recommendation 7

To reinforce complainants’ agency in choosing a resolution option and to help campus Title IX offices remain neutral in that process, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by January 2027, take steps to ensure that campus offices confirm in writing how the complainant would like to proceed after key meetings with campus Title IX staff. For example, the system offices could provide a standard email template for campuses to use for follow-up communication that thanks the complainant for meeting, reminds them of their agency in the process, and confirms the office’s understanding of whether the complainant wants an investigation, wants to begin or continue the alternative resolution process, wants the campus to close the case without formal action, or wants more time to decide.

Recommendation 9

To strengthen the quality, consistency, and trauma-informed nature of investigation and hearing reports, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by July 2027, revise their systemwide policies or related guidance to require campus Title IX offices to review all draft hearing officer reports. The revised policies or guidance should include the following components:

• Clarify the permissible scope of the Title IX offices’ review by defining the specific types of feedback reviewers may provide—such as identifying inconsistent applications of system policy or the use of problematic language—while prohibiting input that would affect the hearing officer’s independence, such as altering the officer’s factual findings or responsibility determinations.

• Establish expectations for what the Title IX offices’ review must evaluate, including whether credibility assessments, evidence analyses, and policy applications are complete, well-supported, and consistent with systemwide policy and whether the draft report includes only language that is trauma-informed.

• Require the Title IX offices to confirm in writing the completion of their review before issuance of the hearing officer’s report.

Recommendation 12

To improve consistency and proportionality in disciplinary sanctions involving student respondents, the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by July 2027, revise its systemwide policies or related guidance to establish minimum sanctions for at least the most severe sexual harassment violations and to require documented rationales from campus officials for all sanctions, similar to the UC system’s policies. The revisions to policy or guidance should do the following:

• Set minimum sanctions for students found responsible for sexual assault, while still allowing for deviations in exceptional circumstances.

• Require student disciplinary decision-makers to provide written rationales that identify specific mitigating and aggravating factors they used to support each sanction. For example, when a sanction is below the minimum sanction, decision-makers should explain their reasoning using specific mitigating factors that apply to the case.

Recommendation 13

To ensure that its policies fully comply with state law, the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by July 2027, revise its policies to implement each specific component of Education Code section 66284, including closing the gaps we show in Table 1 related to campuses’ use of retreat rights, settlements, and informal resolutions.

Recommendations to UC Office of the President

Recommendation 2

To ensure that complainants who wish to engage with a campus Title IX office have every opportunity to do so, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by January 2027, revise their sexual harassment policies or related guidance—and provide accompanying training or support as needed—to direct campus Title IX offices to do the following:

• Briefly document the office’s rationale for using or not using contact methods other than university email, such as a phone number or personal email address, to reach a complainant. At minimum, the offices should document this brief rationale for any report alleging sexual harassment that could result in an alternative resolution or investigation and that the office intends to close without formal action primarily because a complainant has not responded to emails. As part of this rationale, the office should also consider whether it is appropriate to communicate with third parties who are aware of the case and familiar with the Title IX process by taking steps such as reaching out to a mandated reporter or CARE official to confirm a complainant’s contact information or to ask about the complainant’s interest in engaging with the office.

• During intake meetings, ask complainants for their preferred email address and ask whether they are comfortable receiving a phone call or text message as a secondary option if at some point they do not respond to the office’s emails. The offices should document the results of these questions, including the email address and phone number as appropriate. The offices should also consider incorporating these questions into their forms for reporting sexual harassment, if the forms do not already include them.

Recommendation 4

To ensure that campus Title IX offices consistently address respondents’ alleged behavior and reduce the risk of its recurrence, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by January 2027, do the following:

• Revise their sexual harassment policies or related guidance to set a clear expectation that campus Title IX offices should consider holding and documenting educational conversations with respondents for cases they close without formal action. The policies or guidance should include examples of factors for offices to consider when they decide whether these conversations are advisable, such as the complainant’s wishes and safety, the severity of the allegations, and the likelihood that a conversation could help prevent future misconduct. The policies or guidance should also require offices to document a brief rationale when they decide a conversation is unnecessary for a report that names a respondent affiliated with the campus and includes allegations that, if true, would violate the sexual harassment policy.

• Provide training—along with templates or other guidance, as needed—to help campus Title IX office staff execute and document educational conversations effectively. For example, the systems could share UC Irvine’s approach to holding and thoroughly documenting its policy compliance meetings.

Recommendation 6

To improve campus Title IX offices’ communication with complainants and reduce barriers to complainants’ participation in an investigation, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by January 2027, revise their policies or guidance, conduct training, or take other steps to provide campus offices with direction and strategies for making timely decisions about approving or not approving a complainant’s request for an investigation and for informing the complainant about that decision as soon as possible, even if that communication is informal. The system offices should include examples of situations that could warrant expedited approval of a request for an investigation, such as if the campus has already begun the alternative resolution process and the complainant requests to end that process and instead pursue an investigation.

Recommendation 8

To reinforce complainants’ agency in choosing a resolution option and to help campus Title IX offices remain neutral in that process, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by January 2027, take steps to ensure that campus offices confirm in writing how the complainant would like to proceed after key meetings with campus Title IX staff. For example, the system offices could provide a standard email template for campuses to use for follow-up communication that thanks the complainant for meeting, reminds them of their agency in the process, and confirms the office’s understanding of whether the complainant wants an investigation, wants to begin or continue the alternative resolution process, wants the campus to close the case without formal action, or wants more time to decide.

Recommendation 10

To strengthen the quality, consistency, and trauma-informed nature of investigation and hearing reports, the UC Office of the President and the CSU Chancellor’s Office should, by July 2027, revise their systemwide policies or related guidance to require campus Title IX offices to review all draft hearing officer reports. The revised policies or guidance should include the following components:

• Clarify the permissible scope of the Title IX offices’ review by defining the specific types of feedback reviewers may provide—such as identifying inconsistent applications of system policy or the use of problematic language—while prohibiting input that would affect the hearing officer’s independence, such as altering the officer’s factual findings or responsibility determinations.

• Establish expectations for what the Title IX offices’ review must evaluate, including whether credibility assessments, evidence analyses, and policy applications are complete, well-supported, and consistent with systemwide policy and whether the draft report includes only language that is trauma-informed.

• Require the Title IX offices to confirm in writing the completion of their review before issuance of the hearing officer’s report.

Recommendation 11

To improve the consistency, transparency, and appropriateness of disciplinary decisions involving employee respondents found to have violated its sexual harassment policy, the UC Office of the President should, by July 2027, take action to standardize campuses’ approaches to determining and justifying employee discipline, especially for faculty members, and report to us on its efforts. For example, the Office of the President could consider taking one or more of the following actions:

• Revise its policies to require the final campus decision-maker in each employee discipline case—such as the chancellor or chancellor’s designee for faculty respondent cases—to provide to the campus Title IX office a written rationale that considers specified aggravating and mitigating factors and justifies the specific, final disciplinary actions.

• Establish a process to routinely identify in its discipline data potentially inconsistent disciplinary outcomes across cases and campuses, to determine the reasons for the discrepancies, and to provide guidance or make policy changes as necessary. For instance, the Office of the President could provide campus decision-makers with information about typical or expected disciplinary outcomes based on employee type and the nature of the violations.