Using Title IX’s “Prompt and Equitable” Hearing Requirements to Force Schools to Provide Fair Judicial Proceedings to Redress Sexual Assault on Campus

Wendy J. Murphy

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In the spring of 2002, the Administrative Board of Harvard College sought, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted, a new policy requiring victims of peer-to-peer sexual assault to produce “sufficient independent corroboration” as a prerequisite to a full investigation and adjudication of their complaints. Prior to the adoption of this new policy, Harvard’s student-based Coalition Against Sexual Violence (“CASV”) had been working in good faith with administrators toward the improvement of Harvard’s sexual assault policy. Students were angry and frustrated that Harvard consistently had failed to credit the statements of women victims or take meaningful steps to redress sexual violence and instead, had developed a practice of discouraging the reporting and formal adjudication of rape cases on campus. . . .

40 New Eng. L. Rev. 1007