Universities urged to improve staff sexual assault claims process

The handing of Universities’ sexual assault and harassment allegations apparently needs much work, as there is reportedly a large disparity between how staff abuse claims are dealt with when compared to those put forward by students.

A recent report shows that although some institutions are shown to be providing good support to students who report claims, the same doesn’t seem to be the case for staff who find themselves in the same situation.

Gender-based violence or harassment (GBVH) reporting has really only existed in UK universities since the advent of the #MeToo movement, which brought along several high-profile and well documented cases, one of which was the University of Warwick’s ‘rape chat’ scandal in 2019.

The eighty page report shares twenty-five interviews with staff members who handled such complaints, and twenty-seven interviews with people who made reports of abuse to their institutions. Six of these were staff targeted by other colleagues, thirteen were of students targeted by staff, and the remaining eight were students targeted by fellow students.

Anna Bull, director of the 1752 group who created the report, states that there is more of a culture in the modern day to speak up about abuse, but that “institutions aren’t always ready to handle the reports”. She also stated that the formal reporting process is still being refined, though up to now there has been less of a focus on the staff side of complaints.

One of the common observations off the back of the report was that complainants have few rights in the reporting process, where all the focus is on the respondent due to the disciplinary-focused nature of the proceedings.

The complainant often receives little feedback on progress or outcome of the matter, due to institutional concerns regarding data protection legislation, leading reports of one-sided transparency.

Of the twenty-seven cases covered, only three were fully upheld or found to be valid upon conclusion of the investigation, with the complainant in one of those cases being unaware of the repercussions imposed on the member of staff who was to be punished.

The toll of coming forward was also apparent, with some complainants being forced to cease their studies or change institutions. Some were subjected to further harassment after claims were officially reported.

It was acknowledged that it is hard to say whether this data is representative of UK academia as a whole, due to the relative lack of scale of the information collected up to this point, with the Office For Students regulatory body only focusing on student experiences.

How can this be fixed?

Based on the findings of the report, it has been recommended that GBVH be included in Universities’ health and safety remit, to be monitored by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). It has also called for more detailed guidance on how such complaints be handled.

Anna Bull concludes: “This is a complex area legally, socially and institutionally, and we need some kind of ongoing serious case-review panel that would highlight emerging issues and look at cases that have gone wrong.”

Sarah Bevan, Universities UK policy manager adds: “Some of the students in the report highlighted how they were supported by their universities and said there were a lot of specialist staff and support in place.

“I don’t think that would have been the case ten or even five years ago. But at the same time, there are a number of challenges, and we know we have a lot more work to do in this area.”

Since the interviews for this report were conducted in 2020 and 2021, Universities UK has published further guidance which urges for greater transparency and sharing of information.

We await future developments.

Further reading

Bullying and harassment at work – Oakwood Solicitors

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