May 21, 2023
Stanford’s Title IX Policies Fail to Protect Student Survivors
By Eleanor Buchanan
The university’s unique rules add incentives to dismiss cases and reverse disciplinary actions, potentially allowing sexual predators to remain on campus.
In October 2021, a freshman at Stanford University, whom we will call Sarah, went to an on-campus party. She met another freshman, whom we will call Alex, and they danced and talked. The next day, they met up again, walked around campus, and then went back to his dorm room. They both consented to having sex, and Sarah asked him to wear a condom. They argued about it. She told him she’d leave if he didn’t wear a condom, so he eventually put one on. As things progressed, she says, she asked him to stop and to slow down because she was in pain, but he wouldn’t. She left bleeding and with hickeys that lasted for nine days.
She said that at some point he had also taken off the condom. This is called stealthing, which is illegal under California state law and considered rape under Stanford’s Title IX policy. Title IX, the federal legislation that prohibits gender-based discrimination, provides the first level of guidance for how universities address sexual misconduct. By nature, Title IX proceedings are a complex and invasive process for all involved, but Stanford students who choose to go through the Title IX process are met with a particularly difficult system that can deter investigations and prevent the expulsion of students accused of sexual misconduct.
Sexual assault at Stanford is frighteningly common. According to a survey conducted by the university in 2019, nearly 40 percent of female undergraduate students and 14 percent of undergraduate men experience nonconsensual sexual contact by their fourth year. Careful examination of Stanford’s Title IX policy and conduct of university officials reveals a pattern in which cases are often resolved before they can reach the point of a hearing or investigation. Without a hearing or investigation, there can be little disciplinary action, even for the most egregious cases of sexual violence.
