Tim Tai, Staff Photographer

SHARE is available to all members of the Yale community who are dealing with sexual misconduct of any kind, including sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, intimate partner violence and more. Counselors are available any time, day or night, at the 24/7 hotline: (203) 432-2000.

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The University’s Title IX office released its semi-annual report on sexual misconduct this Tuesday — almost one year after its usual release date.

The report, which details all sexual misconduct complaints brought to Yale’s Title IX Coordinators, the Yale Police Department and the University-Wide Commitee on Sexual Misconduct between July 1, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2020, identified 86 complaints — a decrease from the past two reporting periods that could potentially be attributed to the coronavirus pandemic. 

The sexual misconduct report released on Tuesday was introduced and sent out to the Yale community by Stephanie Spangler, former Title IX coordinator and current COVID-19 coordinator. The first semi-annual Title IX report was released in 2011 under the leadership of Spangler, who concluded her role on Dec. 31, 2021.

If on schedule, the report covering this time period should have been released last March, yet because of the COVID-19 pandemic and “staff transitions,” reports have been delayed, according to a February email from new Title IX Coordinator Elizabeth Conklin and Deputy Title IX Coordinator Jason Killheffer.  

In all, the 86 complaints marks an 8.5 percent decrease from the 94 complaints between January and June 2020, and a 33 percent decrease from the 129 complaints between July and December 2019. Despite the return of some students, faculty and staff to campus during the most recent reporting period, the decrease in reported offenses could have been due in part to many students still engaging in remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In alignment with COVID-19 health and safety precautions, repopulation of the campus was gradual and partial during this semester, as sophomore students were asked and other students chose to continue to study remotely and many staff and faculty continued to work from home,” Spangler wrote in the report.

Last March, when the report covering the complaints filed between January and June 2020 was released, Spangler told the News that she could “only speculate” that the shift to remote learning “may have had an effect.”

Within the reporting period between July and December 2020 that is covered in the newly-released report, Yale’s procedures for reviewing formal complaints of sexual misconduct shifted. New Title IX regulations enacted by the Trump administration in August 2020 — which Yale lobbied against — meant the definition of sexual misconduct was narrowed and a school’s obligation to investigate complaints was limited to only offenses that occurred on campus. Spangler said in the report’s introduction that these changes did not affect the role of Title IX coordinators in “providing supportive services and accommodations to those impacted by sexual misconduct.”

The sexual misconduct report contains statistics of filed complaints, with each complaint categorized as sexual assault, sexual harassment, intimate partner violence, stalking or other. According to the report, 39 percent of complaints were sexual harassment and 26 percent were sexual assault. The majority of complaints were filed by Yale students, who made up 73 percent of the sexual assault reports.

In response to these assaults, Yale College complainants were most often “referred… to other University support resources” and “no contact agreements” were typically set up between the complainant and their assaulter. The outcome for the majority of those who committed sexual misconduct was to be “counsel[ed] on appropriate conduct.” The YPD was largely not involved unless the respondent was a non-Yale member. 

“Whenever possible, it is the complainant who decides whether or not to pursue a complaint, and in what venue,” the report states. “In rare circumstances, such as those involving risks to the safety of individuals and/or the community, the University may take additional action independently of the wishes of an individual complainant.”

According to a table included in the report, out of the 86 complaints, no further action was taken in response to 34 of them. 

In addition to the semiannual reports, in 2015 and 2019 Yale participated in a campus climate survey on sexual misconduct conducted by the Association of American Universities, or AAU. According to the survey’s findings, most students who experience sexual assault do not report it to campus resources or the police. Many students who participated in the survey stated that their lack of action was because they felt that their assault was not significant enough, or that officials would not take their assault seriously. 

According to Conklin and Killheffer, the AAU surveys play an important role in determining what steps would be appropriate to bettering campus culture surrounding sexual misconduct.

“Barriers continue to exist that prevent individuals from coming forward to report misconduct and to seek assistance from University resources,” Conklin and Killheffer wrote to the News in February. “With this invaluable data in mind, we have developed new and enhanced programming to help prevent sexual misconduct on our campus and to increase community awareness of resources.”

Two of the semi-annual reports have still not been made publicly available — the missing reports cover complaints reported in January to June 2021 and July to December 2021. If on schedule, the latter would have been released in March. 

Conklin and Spangler did not respond in time for publication when asked when the two backlogged reports would be published or when Conklin would take over in leading the process of these reports.

“I am very enthusiastic about this transition,” Spangler said in her Tuesday email, regarding Conklin’s new position as Title IX Coordinator. “Not only because this important responsibility will be in Ms. Conklin’s extremely capable hands but also because placing the role in Ms. Conklin’s Institutional Equity, Accessibility, and Belonging portfolio will expand opportunities for collaborations and synergies as we work together to address and prevent all forms of discrimination and harassment on our campus.”

Nineteen semi-annual Title IX sexual misconduct reports have been released since 2011.