CAREER: The Efficacy of Sexual Assault Mandatory Reporting Policies

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Sexual assault is a serious threat to safety and educational access within institutions of higher education, especially for women and underrepresented groups. The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has attempted to remedy this issue via Title IX guidance, instructing institutions to establish policies that can address sexual assault and ensure assault survivors’ equal access to education. As colleges and universities interpret and implement federal legal directives, little attention has been paid to assessing whether the resulting policies achieve their intended aims. Many institutions have created policies that require most employees to report sexual assault they learn about to university officials, even if the person who experienced the sexual assault does not want to report. It is assumed that these mandatory reporting policies will increase reports and benefit survivors, but there is a lack of evidence to support those assumptions. Regaining a sense of autonomy and control is essential for survivors’ healing after an assault, and some mandatory reporting policy practices may cause unintended harm. Therefore, understanding the effects and outcomes of college and university mandatory reporting policies for sexual assault is essential for creating policies that best support survivors and ensure equal access to education.This CAREER project will collect qualitative data from both institutions of higher education (e.g., mandatory reporting policy text) and institutional members (i.e., faculty/staff members and students) at two institutions of higher education. The analysis of these institutional- and individual-level data will achieve three research aims. Research Aim 1 will evaluate how institutional mandatory reporting policies are reflected in and deviate from faculty/staff and students’ understandings and attitudes of those policies. Research Aim 2 will determine the impact of mandatory reporting policies on faculty/staff and students’ behaviors and outcomes. Research Aim 3 will then elucidate faculty/staff and students’ perspectives on mandatory reporting policy practices that afford survivors greater autonomy. These aims will support and be supported by education aims focused on enhance student training and dissemination in qualitative research methods and analysis, and through a graduate seminar and hands-on experience researching MR policies. Education Aim 2 will provide opportunities for institutional leaders and policymakers to learn about the use of qualitative research to evaluate and create evidence-based policy. Findings from this research will advance our understanding of how college and university mandatory reporting policies for sexual assault are translated from paper into practice, determine the efficacy of such policies for addressing sexual assault and supporting sexual assault survivors (e.g., ensuring their access to education), and facilitate evidence-based policymaking.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.