03/05/2020
𝗗𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗢𝗡 𝗖𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗚𝗘 𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗟𝗬 𝗗𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗬𝗦 𝗧𝗜𝗧𝗟𝗘 𝗜𝗫 𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗘 𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘.
Sometimes this is done before a case is even completed.
The Dickinson administration was completely dishonest with us when negotiating our agreement. They agreed to at least one reform they had no intention of following. The school is incapable of even meeting the terms of this reform due to the egregious mismanagement of the Title IX Office.
To all of those in previously completed cases who told me how relieved and grateful they were to finally be able to have these materials, I am so incredibly sorry. Despite what the school agreed to, there is about a 50/50 chance those materials exist anymore. I am so sorry that the Dickinson Title IX Office hurt you AGAIN. This is unacceptable and devastating for so many people and I am so sorry.
Dickinson, what are you going to do to make this right?
I've already got a list of new reforms on this subject.
If you ask me, a new agreement is in order.
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗜𝗧𝗨𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡:
- We only recently discovered that audio recordings of investigation interviews are never handed over to the Title IX Office. They are made and maintained by the staff members assigned to be investigators in the case. Sometimes these recordings are even made on personal cell phones.
- Investigators are allowed to decide whether to delete or save these recordings as they see fit. There is no regulation on this subject.
- The Title IX Office has failed to communicate any mechanism the office employs to ensure investigators do not intentionally or accidentally make these materials public. This is a major concern since all Dickinson interview recordings are currently being kept by random staff members.
- The college agreed to allow students involved in any case past, present, and future the ability to request and receive investigative material of their case including interview recordings and transcripts. However, the administration withheld from us the fact that they have no way of fulfilling that agreement because in many cases, these materials were deleted or never made in the first place, and were never in the possession of the Title IX Office at any point despite these interviews being the basis of the entire investigation.
- The Title IX Office confirmed that while students have been requesting these materials since the reforms were put in place, the school's process for obtaining them is: looking up what staff investigated the case, contacting that staff member, and asking if they happen to still have these materials.
- In 2016, the Office for Civil Rights ruled that audio recordings are not required to be made but if they are, they are a part of the case record and must be maintained as such. Dickinson's record retention policy for Title IX cases is 7 years after last date of attendance. Why then are they destroying evidence far before that date?
- Despite the fact that the investigation report consists almost entirely of block quotes from interview recordings, these recordings are sometimes deleted before an investigation report is even completed.
- Despite there being no way for students to be sure the records of what they said in their interviews are not deleted, the Title IX Office refuses to allow students to make their own recordings of their interviews.
- Without allowing students access to their interview transcripts and recordings, there is no way for Dickinson to ever be held accountable for their process. There is no way for students to show how Dickinson's process is broken and fails at the most fundamental components of an investigation. Deleting these materials removes any hope of transparency in this process.
In the case discussed in the Dickinsonian article, Kat Matic claims that interview recordings were deleted before the new reforms were enacted and therefore the office did not violate the new reforms. However, the complainant did not receive their draft investigation report until four days after the new reforms were enacted. Additionally, in an email between Kat Matic and the complainant on the day the new reforms were enacted, Kat Matic states that the draft report is not yet complete. Therefore, either the recordings were deleted before the report was finished being written or after the new reforms were put in place.
New concerns have been raised about Dickinson College procedures regarding preservation of evidence in Title IX cases. The concerns surround the provision in the agreement signed between students and Dickinson College to reform Title IX procedures at the college. According to a student who will rema...
