TW: This article will discuss stories of sexual assault and harassment. No details are given.

The statistics sound unreal: one in five women and one in 16 men report sexual assaults while in college. Passed as a section of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title IX was intended to end gender discrimination on college campuses. This includes the promotion of women’s participation in college sports, banning the use of pregnancy as a reason to expel students and equalizing admission requirements for all genders. Most applicable to this article, Title IX also applies to gender-based violence on campus (including sexual and emotional violence), assisting with the process of reporting and prosecuting sexual misdemeanors. But how does Title IX prevent sexual assault and harassment in the first place? The answer is: it doesn’t. In fact, it doesn’t even effectively do what it’s supposed to. 

The Title IX process is wishy-washy. Victims have different legal paths they can travel down, from filing restraining orders and asking for informal reports to filing a formal report if punishment for the accused is wanted. If they wish to go down the latter path, the investigation process usually has common first steps: the incident is reported, an investigation is opened, the accused assaulter is informed of the investigation and the school affords due process on both sides. After this, it varies widely by college policies, especially if the accused assaulter was the victim’s past or current partner. The hearing procedures differ, but most present possible harm to victims, from the accused’s lawyer being able to cross-examine victims to the accused getting additional “support advisors”. 

Here, it’s easy to see where legal lines get convoluted, especially when enforcement is scarce. On a previous official US Department of Education website handout, the word “should” appears 12 times in terms of enforcing Title IX, with quotes like “Your school must protect you as necessary, even before it completes any investigation. Your school should start doing this promptly once the incident is reported.” Should. With little oversight for consistency in laws, wiggle room is often exploited. Power dynamics in schools, especially those pertaining to race, gender, class and faculty status are often upheld, with due process only seen through on an irregular basis. 

“The process can take up to nine months,” Sarah Phillippi ’24 certified sexual assault advocate and previous facilitator of a sexual and dating violence survivors’ identity collective on campus, said. “This is not an easy [to] resolve process. Most of the time, I personally feel like the outcome in these cases are a slap on the wrist. So then, what was the point of having this person going through this traumatizing, lengthy process, just to say ‘Oh, don’t do that again’?” 

The lack of oversight can end up translating into schools’ Title IX offices as well. An Iowa State University study found that when Title IX investigators receive training to conduct interviews — a necessary step for any kind of Title IX action to be taken — the lessons are often ineffective, at best teaching how to avoid litigation, and at worst being completely inaccurate. When these nonpunitive measures are ineffective, everyone is harmed. Even critics of Title IX, who claim it has too much oversight, advocate for these measures in order to protect students of color from biased accusations and criminalization. 

To make matters worse, the Donald Trump administration recently removed former President Joe Biden’s Title IX policies of protections on the basis of gender identity and sexuality and an expanded definition of harassment. A recent executive order by Trump declared how, in his words, “[t]hese sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” The law is beginning to deny the very existence of gender-nonconforming people. Title IX protections for these students are being increasingly stripped. 

All of this makes one thing clear: Title IX has to change. Liability must be consistently and clearly applied, without complex legal hoops to jump through. Investigation standards must be uniform and impactful. Education on Title IX and its procedures must be widespread (I myself had no idea about the steps of this process until researching for this article). I am no legal scholar; I can’t give any specific policy suggestions. But even the experts agree adjustments are needed.  

Macalester must follow suit. The Title IX office often fails to give survivors the support and advocacy they want. It is, quite literally, not built for that kind of help. The Title IX office needs to stop being pushed as a one-size-fits-all system to receive justice after a sexual assault or harassment. A perfect Title IX system would serve as one option in a comprehensive structure. 

“There is this kind of narrative pushed on people that it’s like, okay, this thing has happened, and now we contact the police, and contact Title IX and report this, but that doesn’t always have to be the case,” Phillippi said. “In my advocacy philosophy, I just like to lay out all of the choices for someone…like, ‘Here’s all of these options. You get to pick what we do.’”

However, a lot of these other options simply aren’t possible within the status quo of Macalester. 

“Where I see a lot of the Macalester-level failures is not at the Title IX level, but at the advocacy level,” Phillippi said . “They refuse to invest in any other advocacy…Students are upset with [the] Title IX office and students are upset with Laura [Creech], the Title IX coordinator. If we could invest in something else to give students that space of advocacy and help mitigate the [negative] effects of Title IX, I think that would be very beneficial.” 

Support through trained advocates can be incredibly affirming for survivors. Ramsay SOS and other organizations offer scheduled times for students to speak to advocates on a weekly basis. However, the Title IX system is set up where these advocates can listen and advise on issues in one-on-one meetings, but they cannot accompany survivors outside of the small room they meet in. Not for STI testing, not for filing formal reports, not for attending hearings. This can detract from the benefits these professionals can give. More personalized and expansive structures promoting advocacy are desperately needed for survivors. 

“I think Title IX offering an all-encompassing advocate and support system for survivors, or having access to one through Macalester or an outside organization (like Ramsey SOS) is incredibly important,” an anonymous student said via email. “Having to go through that process without one is incredibly isolating and terrifying. I think this person could provide the support a Title IX coordinator can’t.” 

To be perfectly clear, throughout this article, when Phillippi, the anonymous student and myself criticize Title IX, we are not criticizing the people themselves who work in Macalester’s Title IX office. They’re doing the best they can with a broken system. The solution, then, is obvious: fix the broken system. 

Still, it isn’t just an administrative reckoning that must occur. It’s a cultural one as well. Macalester may be a small liberal arts school with progressive values, but that doesn’t mean sexual misconduct isn’t a problem here, like it can be so easy to believe. Although we lack Greek life, which heavily contributes to rates of sexual misconduct on larger campuses, we are not exempt from being complacent to sexual harassment and assault. I see people around campus every day who I know have hurt others. It isn’t just naive to turn a blind eye to — or worse, still remain friends with these people – it is unacceptable.

This ties into my own case. In my time at Macalester, I have experienced sexual assault. It is a slow process of reckoning; I am still coming to a full grasp of the past and future of this situation. But, to be honest, I am extremely lucky. I wasn’t physically hurt in any way. It was one time. I have received unconditional and invaluable support from those who I have told. But his words and actions still find a way to cruelly replay in my mind. He was a close friend of mine. I trusted him. And yet, he did this. 

In telling some adults of my family and my therapist what happened, there were a few responses along the lines of: “why don’t you just report it?” And while I did appreciate the intention behind such a statement, I knew it wasn’t an option for me. The Title IX restrictions and processes would be too much. The last place I wanted to be was getting a lawyer, sitting in an office, describing what had happened to strangers legally required to be neutral, describing what had happened again to more strangers and spending time and money that I don’t want to spend. And for what? If somehow the process goes perfectly, the most that would happen is him being expelled. That doesn’t change what he did. In my eyes, the litigation process makes me once again into his passive counterpart, the objectified person, someone only seen as the thing this happened to. My pain turns into an institutionalized problem to solve. It is no longer my own. I don’t want that. I don’t want him to control my actions and emotions. I want to, and will continue to, make my own decisions. 

I am nowhere close to the only one with this perspective. 

“I haven’t [gone through the Title IX process]. I was incredibly aware of how ineffective Title lX can be,”  the anonymous student said. “I knew that the coordinator, [Creech] couldn’t affirm what I was saying or provide any support, and I didn’t think I could handle that. Even now, I think that what I can do to remove [the assaulter] from my life and space is more effective than Title IX, especially because going through Title IX makes it all out of my control, which absolutely scares me.”

The most terrifying part of writing this article wasn’t the emotional and physical exhaustion of actually writing it, or reliving memories or my extreme vulnerability in conversations about pitching it. It was realizing the fact that I am an anonymous student, and there are so many people I could be. The statistics and stories I share in this article are not limited to only these. There are many cases like mine on this campus. It can be so easy to look the other way, to ignore issues that are ostensibly not pertinent at Macalester, to know this is something that happens, just to other people. I beg you not to think that. 

I don’t write this article to fearmonger, but to tell people to stay vigilant. To call out your friends. To reexamine your values. To check in on those you know. To be the preventative force. There might be some of those harmful people reading this. Make no mistake: I know who you are. 

If and when events like these happen, community is everything. 

“Support and advocacy groups have been, in my experience, the most effective for nonlegal support,” the anonymous student said . “The mix of community — having support through healing, prosecuting or just living — has been everything to me.”

This community doesn’t even have to come from formalized groups. If someone tells you about their experience, be there for them. Ask how you can help them. Systemic change always starts on a personal basis. 

“Change only happens when someone has a passion to make change,” Phillippi said . “And that is so challenging, because if you don’t have a person that’s willing to push these things and make waves, nothing happens.”  

It’s disgusting how true this trite phrase is: it could happen to anyone. It happened to me. It is everyone’s job to make sure this never happens to anyone else again. 

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual misconduct, here are some resources:

The Ramsey County SOS hotline is 651-266-1000. 

Macalester’s Hamre Center Sexual Respect website lists advocacy-based resources on campus. Contact [email protected] for more information about advocacy at Macalester. 

The Title IX office number is 651-696-6258. They offer other support services besides formal complaints.