Ombuds Benchmarking & Title IX Research Resources

The following resources have been compiled by IOA's Title IX Committee for your reference. Some of these documents have been produced, written or initiated by IOA. Other documents were obtained from media reports or other sources, but permission has been granted to share them on our organization's website. All files are PDF files unless otherwise indicated.

• Survey of Higher Education Ombuds Reporting Under the Clery Act and Title IX
• Clery Act
• Government Guidance Documents
• IOA Resources
• News Articles
• Ombuds' Roles: What ombuds do
• Other Charters
• Ombuds Confidentiality
• Reports on Sexual Assault
• Title IX

Survey of Higher Education Ombuds Reporting Under the Clery Act and Title IX

• In August 2016, the DOE responded to IOA rejecting the clery act arguments. IOA President, Reese Ramos, reached out to the membership summarizing the news. You can re-read Reese's email here. 
• Wilmer Hale Memo & Background
• Campus Ombuds as Confidential Resource for Purposes of Title IX and Clery Act Reporting
• In 2014, IOA's Ad Hoc Title IX Task Force determined that a legal memorandum from a highly respected law firm, making the case for the ombuds confidentiality in the contexts of both Title IX and Clery, could be extremely valuable to the advancement of understanding and acceptance the ombuds as a non-reporting, confidential resource. In March 2016, the law firm of WilmerHale produced this memo to address whether higher education institutions that have an academic organizational ombudsman (“ombuds”) may treat the ombuds as a confidential resource in light of federal laws that require certain campus personnel to report information about sexual violence incidents to institution officials. 

Clery Act

• IOA Memo, 22 October 2020: Recission of the U.S. Department of Education’s 2016 Clery Act Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting
• Department of Education Handbook on Campus Safety and Security 
• Violence Against Women Act Amendments to Clery — Infographic (.png file)
• Violence Against Women Act Final Rule 
   

Government Guidance Documents

• Dear Colleague Letter Fact Sheet
• Q&A on Title IX
• Sexual Harassment Guideline — January 2001
• Title IX and Clery Act Comparison Chart
• U.S. Department of Education Dear Colleague Letter

IOA Resources

• Benchmark Table of Ombuds Charters/Survey of Higher Education Ombuds Reporting Under Clery and Title IX - updated April 6, 2017
• IOA Response to Department of Education Proposal regarding Violence Against Women Act
• IOA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice
• IOA Best Practices Supplement
• Overview and Comparison Table for Title VII, Title IX, and the Clery Act for Ombuds

• Comments of the International Ombuds Association re: Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Sex in Education Programs or Activities Receiving Federal Financial Assistance

• Blog: US Title IX June 2022 Update

News Articles

• Chloe Lew: Sexual assault policy needs more transparency (Daily Bruin, February 9, 2015)
• Colleges Call in Legal Pros to Handle Sexual Assault Cases (Chronicle of Higher Education, February 16, 2015)
• Official campus statistics for sexual violence mislead (Al Jazeera America, July 14, 2014)
• Oregon Quarterly Sexual Assault, "It's On Us" (March 10, 2015)
• Quiet No Longer, Rape Survivors Put Pressure on Colleges (Chronicle of Higher Education, August 12, 2013)
• The Stanford Undergraduate and the Mentor (The New York Times Magazine, February 11, 2015)

Ombuds' Roles: What ombuds do:

• University of Maryland: Different ombuds for different categories
• University of Colorado Boulder ombuds: What they do
• Montana State University Roles and Services
• University of Iowa: What we do

Other Charters:

• Lewis and Clark Charter
• Oregon State University Charter
• University of California-Irvine Charter
• University of California-Riverside Charter
• University of California-Santa Barbara Charter
  

Ombuds Confidentiality

• An Overview of Ombuds Confidentiality
• Federal Privilege in the Ombudsman's Process (Charleston Law Review, Fall 2013)
• Justification for Creating an Ombudsman Privilege in Today's Society (Marquette Law Review, Winter 2012)
• No Notice Is Good News (Journal of Dispute Resolution, 2005)
• The Ombudsman Confidentiality Privilege; Theory and Mechanics (The Ombudsman Association, 1996)
• Universities, Corporations, and States Use Them--Now It's Time to Protect Them: An Analysis of the Public and Private Sector Ombudsman and the Continued Need for a Privileged Relationship (Southern Illinois University Law Journal, Winter 2003)

Reports on Sexual Assault

• Twenty Students Per Week: The Report of the University Senate Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support (University of Oregon, November 5, 2014)
• Addressing Sexual Assault and Interpersonal Violence: Athletics’ Role in Support of Healthy and Safe Campuses (NCAA, September 2014)
• Brown University Sexual Assault Task Force: Interim Report (December 2014)
• Report of the University of Oregon President's Review Panel (December 9, 2014)
• Report to the President and Fellows of Yale University of the Advisory Committee on Campus Climate(September 15, 2011)
• Infographic: Confronting Campus Sexual Assault: An Examination of Higher Education Claims (2015)

Title IX

• Assessing Institutional Responsibility for Sexual Harassment in Education (Tulane Law Review, 2002)
• Burying Our Heads in the Sand: Lack of Knowledge, Knowledge Avoidance and the Persistent Problem of Campus Peer Sexual Violence (Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, Fall 2011)
• Chuck Howard Excerpt on Title IX Notice
• Climate Surveys: Useful Tools to Help Colleges and Universities in Their Efforts to Reduce and Prevent Sexual Assault
• Decriminalizing Campus Institutionalized Responses to Peer Sexual Violence (Journal of College and University Law, 2012)
• Institution-Specific Victimization Surveys: Addressing Legal and Practical Disincentives to Gender-Based Violence Reporting on College Campuses (Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 2014)
• Know Your Rights: Title IX Requires Your School to Address Sexual Violence (U.S. Department of Education, 2015)
• Limiting Gebser: Institutional Liability for Non-Harassment Sex Discrimination Under Title IX (Wake Forest Law Review, Summer 2004)
• Masculinity and Title IX: Bullying and Sexual Harassment of Boys in the American Liberal State (Maryland Law Review, 2014)
• Not Alone: The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault (White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, 2014)
• Occidental College Report of External Audit and Assessment of Title IX Policies, Procedures and Practices (October 22, 2014)
• Title IX: Beyond Equal Protection (Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, Summer 2005)
• Top 10 Things We Need to Know About Title IX (Whitepaper by the NCHERM Group, LLC and Atixa, 2013)