Revealing the reality

Liberty’s Title IX Office works to eliminate sexual misconduct on campus

Beneath the glitz and glam that an onlooker may see when visiting almost every university is a different side. A side that is far less talked about.

Students and officials would rather not admit it happens, but it exists.

It is the reality of sexual misconduct.

Liberty University is no exception to this reality. By implementing a Title IX Office, Liberty is doing all it can to make it a priority to halt, avoid and rectify any instances of sexual misconduct Brittney Wardlaw, the director of the office that has been official since April 2015, said she oversees the occurrences of sexual misconduct involving Liberty and the prevention of these acts.

“With Title IX and my role as the director, my primary responsibilities are to stop, prevent and remedy any occurrences of sexual violence, discrimination, harassment or even any type of assault that happens,” Wardlaw said. “Anytime that we have any information that it’s occurring, (it’s) our primary response to stop it from happening. (We do) what … we have to do to stop this from happening to a student, to an employee, to a visitor, to anybody that is part of the Liberty community.”

According to Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Though Title IX deals with discrimination based on gender, sexual misconduct also falls into this category.

“Gender-based discrimination includes sexual violence, harassment, dating and domestic violence, stalking or any gender-based offenses,” Wardlaw said. “So if someone is being bullied and it’s because of their gender, then that would be a Title IX situation. Our responsibility (is to) stop it from happening. We are also responsible for preventing it from happening.”

Sexual misconduct, as defined by the Liberty Way, specifically includes sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, non-consensual sexual contact, non-consensual sexual intercourse, bullying, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.

The office also works on programming and awareness in order to prevent sexual misconduct and violence.

“Prevention has a lot to do with education,” Wardlaw said. “It is my responsibility to work on the education piece to the campus as a whole, getting people to be aware of what Title IX is, what it looks like, being able to identify it, knowing how to report it, and knowing what they can do in the situation.”

According to Wardlaw, all students are required to attend a session on proper bystander intervention techniques for sexual misconduct.

“We’ve done ‘Keeping It Safe’ (sessions) for years, and in ‘Keeping It Safe,’ we talk about bystander intervention,” Wardlaw said. “It’s no longer called ‘Keeping It Safe.’ It’s called Live Healthy Liberty, so that’s done with every incoming student. Every freshman (and transfer student) that comes in then goes through Live Healthy Liberty during orientation.”

Wardlaw referenced page 39 of the 2015 Liberty Campus Crime Report as a place for people to find ways to ensure their personal safety at Liberty.

She said he or she should trust their instincts, be aware of their surroundings, and tell a friend his or her location and when he or she will return. Wardlaw also said the report includes helpful tips on day-to-day safety and safety while in relationships.

According to the Liberty University Police Department (LUPD) website, the police force offers the LU Safe Ride Program for students. It is a 24/7 service in which students can call the LUPD non-emergency line at (434) 592-7641 and request an escort from one place on campus to another if they feel unsafe. Students must provide their name and student ID number in order to
use the service.

According to the recently released report of 2014 statistics, there was one report of on-campus rape, one report of off-campus rape and one case of on-campus aggravated assault.

According to Wardlaw, if a student feels they have been discriminated against based on their gender, there are two different routes he or she can take to report such an issue. If the student wants to take the administrative route, he or she can email titleix@liberty.edu, call 434-582-8948, or walk into the office located in DeMoss Hall 1830. The Title IX Office has created an anonymous online reporting form located on the Title IX webpage at Title IX.

If the person filing a report wants to take the criminal route with LUPD, the person can call the LUPD emergency line at (434) 592-3911 or the LUPD non-emergency line at (434) 592-7641.

If a student wants to report to a confidential resource, Student Counseling Services is available. They can be contacted at (434) 582-2651. Additionally, the Campus Pastors Office is also available as a confidential resource on a case-by-case basis. That office can be contacted by calling (434)-592-5411.

According to the university’s sexual assault polices located on the Title IX Office website, acts of sexual misconduct are taken extremely seriously and may result in dismissal from the university for at least two semesters.

Wardlaw said people can make reports through either route individually or both routes. If someone makes a report with the Title IX Office, he or she can request the report does not get sent to LUPD as well. Wardlaw said it is her responsibility to decide if she can grant the request. She said the majority of times she respects people’s requests except when there is a major safety concern to them or the university. However, it does limit her ability to respond to the situation.

After the act of harassment or violence occurs, the remedy step ensues.

“When we remedy, we usually do things like get them into counseling services,” Wardlaw said. “We work with their professors if we need to make some sort of accommodations when it comes to classes. We can work with housing to see if there needs to be any housing changes. We’ll work with them as far as transportation is concerned, if they feel they need an escort somewhere to make sure that they feel safe. We want to do anything that is reasonable to accommodate their situation depending on the circumstances of what they’re reporting or what they are alleging happened.”

Wardlaw said the implementation of the Title IX Office at Liberty was not because the services it offers were not available before but rather the services are being consolidated into one department. She said the Dean of Students Office has already been working to stop, prevent and remedy cases of discrimination based on gender.

“If you want to do it, and you want to do it well, the best way is with an office that exclusively focuses on (Title IX),” Wardlaw said.

According to Wardlaw, the U.S. government can investigate a university if it believes it is in violation of Title IX. According to an article posted by the Charlottesville Daily Progress Sept. 21, the University of Virginia (UVA) just signed an agreement essentially ending a multi-year review of its sexual misconduct policies. In 2011, the university was found to be in violation of Title IX, and since then a Title IX coordinator has been named and new training programs have begun.

Wardlaw said the UVA investigation spurred Liberty to make sure their policies are up-to-standard.

“UVA is in our backyard, so that makes us say … ‘This could potentially happen to us,’ but we’re fairly confident it won’t because we have taken every step that we possibly can to make sure that we are in compliance,” Wardlaw said. “A lot of what we are doing under the office of Title IX, we’ve always done, but to make sure that it’s clear that we are in compliance, we are now labeling it. This is Title IX.”

Though the Title IX Office at Liberty has been an official department under Wardlaw for only a few months, the office’s main goal is to serve people because of the care they deserve to receive.

“(We work with) stopping, preventing and then also remedying (situations), meaning if something did happen to somebody, we want to be able to say, ‘How can we come alongside you to help rectify this the best we can?’” Wardlaw said.

RODRIGUEZ is the news editor.