BY ELIZABETH WILSON | CalMatters
Changes are underway one year after scathing audits showed how the California State University system failed to handle reports of sexual discrimination, harassment and assault in its Title IX offices.
Months-long delays. Lack of trust. Failure. These are just a few ways in which investigators a year ago described the inadequate responses to sexual assault and discrimination across the 23-campus California State University system.
Now, the system says it is meeting this month’s deadline for implementing 12 fixes for problems reported in a July 2023 state audit and a law firm review of how its universities have mishandled cases reported under Title IX, the federal prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex. Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith says the university system is on track to meet all 16 fixes outlined in the audit by July 2026. Lawmakers are not taking the system at its word, however. Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill requiring Cal State to implement the state auditor’s recommendations and provide the Legislature a progress report by next summer.
A series of high-profile cases, including one that resulted in the head of the university system resigning, sparked the review of Title IX procedures and illuminated severe distrust among many students and employees in the Cal State system. The Chancellor’s Office commissioned the Cozen O’Connor law firm to undertake a yearlong investigation, in which teams visited each campus either in-person or via Zoom, conducted interviews, and surveyed 18,000 anonymous employees and students about their experiences with the Title IX offices at their schools.
“This is not a singular issue that one person or one group can address. This is really an issue that’s going to take the work of every single member of our CSU campus community for the Chancellor’s Office to really build a culture change,” said Hayley Schwartzkopf, associate vice chancellor for Civil Rights Programming and Services. Hers is a new role created by the Chancellor’s Office to oversee anti-discrimination efforts.
When Schwartzkopf began in February, each campus was already starting to make major changes — including hiring more staff, creating specialized roles, and communicating better with students and employees. At the system level, Cal State is adding staff to the civil rights office to provide support and oversight to the 23 campuses.
Rape case shows how staffing leads to failures
According to the law firm’s report, nearly every Cal State campus struggled with understaffing and insufficient funding in their Title IX offices, which handle reports of gender discrimination as well as sexual harassment and assault. Staff vacancies were reported at 10 campuses, while the staff available often had multiple duties beyond their job descriptions. Each institution receiving federal funding must have at least one Title IX coordinator, but the firm’s report concluded that it takes several staff members to handle reports, investigations and disciplinary actions.
Read More: State auditor’s office blasts California State University for mishandling sexual misconduct cases
“On most campuses, there are not enough people to do the work that they are assigned,” Cozen review chair Gina Maisto Smith told the Cal State Board of Trustees last May. “Individuals that are overloaded with too much responsibility are focusing on the fires, and as a consequence all the other things are just dissolving and leading to a lack of trust in the system.”
Staff turnover was also a problem at several universities, including Sonoma State, where there was “historic instability in the leadership,” according to the Cozen report. That office had five staff positions from 2021 to 2024, though seven people left and were replaced during that time, according to university data obtained by CalMatters.
For Sonoma State alumna Amanda, who asked not to have her last name used to protect her privacy, the turnover led to her case lasting more than a year. When Cal State released findings in her case in July 2023, the hearing officer found “based on a preponderance of the evidence” that a fellow student did “engage in Sexual Assault – Fondling and Rape” of Amanda in October 2021 in violation of Cal State policy, according to the officer’s final report reviewed by CalMatters. (The hearing officer is an impartial, contracted attorney trained in Title IX investigations for educational institutions.)
Amanda first reported the incident to her campus’s police department in February 2022. She decided to forgo a police investigation, and instead pursue a Title IX case, saying she hoped it would be a quicker and less cumbersome process.
“I was wrong,” she said.
Amanda wanted the student expelled or suspended for at least a year. At first, she sought an informal resolution, a mutual agreement of both parties. But she and the other student were unable to agree on terms, so Amanda pursued a formal Title IX investigation through the Cal State system.
Formal investigations should be completed within 100 working days after the Title IX office notifies the students they are starting the investigation, according to Cal State policy. In Amanda’s case, the investigation began on March 7, 2022 and was supposed to conclude by July 29, 2022. The preliminary report still hadn’t been finished when, seven months into the still-open case, the investigator on the case left the university on Oct. 5, 2022 for an unknown reason. The Title IX office then sent Amanda four notices of extension as a new investigator took over, according to emails she shared with CalMatters.
For Amanda, a graduate of Sonoma State University who requested only using her first name for privacy, her Title IX case lasted more than a year due to staffing turnover and other issues. Photo by Alyssa Archerda, SSU.edu
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Sonoma State’s current Title IX Coordinator, Julie Vivas, declined to discuss Amanda’s case or past personnel issues in her office, but acknowledged “the turnover in Title IX offices is very high due to a number of factors” in California and nationally.
Confused by the delays, Amanda emailed Sonoma State’s then-president, Mike Lee. His chief of staff met with her in January 2023 and a month later emailed Amanda explaining the investigation was delayed due to scheduling conflicts, additional witness interviews and the transition of the new investigator.
“We recognize that this was a long process. Moving forward, we expect these cases to be concluded within a more reasonable timeframe, especially as we become fully staffed,” the email stated.
During that year, Amanda continued her studies but quit her on-campus job and didn’t go into certain buildings to avoid the other student. Despite a no-contact order, she still would run into him. She said the worst was hearing the sound of a skateboard, which he often rode, feeling her stomach drop, then looking over her shoulder and sometimes seeing him ride by.
“It was like psychological torture,” Amanda said. “Because this big, big traumatic thing happened and I was already falling apart from it … And then you’re put through this process. And it’s like, they just keep ripping the wound open over and over again.”
A hearing was finally held in June 2023, a month after she graduated. After considering testimony from both parties and other witnesses, the hearing officer’s report said a preponderance of evidence led her to conclude that Amanda was sexually fondled at knifepoint and then raped by a fellow student.
The student denied wrongdoing, according to hearing documents. He was suspended for one semester, required to complete training on consent and write a reflection paper. Amanda appealed, asking for a stronger punishment. After three extensions, her appeal was denied and the case closed in October 2023. Amanda resents the time she spent on her Title IX case rather than her education at Sonoma State.
“It’s hard because the school that I loved, that was supposed to take care of me and protect me, they didn’t do that. They failed. And, you know, even as I was graduating, I should have been so proud of myself, I should have been focused on, like, everything I accomplished. The only thing I could think about was, it failed me.”
Campuses adding staff, restructuring offices to improve caseload
Versions of stories like Amanda’s were shared over and over by students and employees throughout the Cal State system who felt as if they’d been failed by a system meant to protect them. The Cozen survey detailed lengthy investigations, poor quality of anti-discrimination training and sexual harassment prevention programs, and overall negative campus climate.
The Cozen report cited a lack of Title IX oversight at each campus. In response, campuses and the Chancellor’s Office are adding staff, including four regional directors to help campuses implement policy changes and update their systems for tracking reports.
So far, campuses have not received extra funding for Title IX positions, spokesperson Bentley-Smith stated in an email. Instead, campuses have used existing positions and funds for new staffing and costs. Cal State plans to finalize its budget plan for Title IX services by the end of July, which may include a small increase for 2024-25, she wrote.
The state audit and Cozen report both recommend each campus have six Title IX staff members. However, that amount depends on campus size, number of reports received and resources available, Schwartzkopf explained.
“When you have a lot of cases and not a lot of people, it means that you can’t spend the amount of time that you would want to on a particular case,” Schwartzkopf said.
For example, Cal State Monterey Bay, which has more than 7,000 students and 1,000 employees, had two Title IX staff members in 2023 and is now recruiting for a third. San Diego State, which has more than 37,000 students and 4,000 employees, had six Title IX staff in 2023 and has since hired three more.
At Fresno State — a campus with nearly 24,000 students and more than 2,000 employees — its four Title IX office staff members were splitting their time with another campus office focused on discrimination cases based on identities other than sex, such as race and religion. Fresno State was one of four Cal State campuses operating separate offices, which the Cozen report recommended combining. Now, the university has merged both offices under the Office of Compliance and Civil Rights, with six positions. With more staff, they can address issues faster, said Bernadette Muscat, dean of Library Services and co-chair of the Title IX implementation team at Fresno State. People no longer get bounced around between the two offices.
A university needs both care and compliance roles, the Cozen report found. Many Title IX office staff, however, were taking complaints and then investigating them, which led to the first points of contact switching hats to be impartial investigators. Cozen recommended restructuring offices to separate roles and prevent the perception that Title IX processes are solely legalistic.
Before December 2023, San Francisco State’s Title IX office had three full-time investigators who also took initial complaints, serving 23,700 students and 3,700 employees. As a result, the university’s investigators were stretched too thin and 17 of 48 open investigations were over a year old, according to the campus’s Cozen report. The office has since moved one of the investigators into taking reports exclusively, and hired another investigator to fill that gap. The office restructuring has allowed the investigators to “focus solely on the investigation process,” Lori Makin-Byrd, interim Title IX Coordinator, wrote in an email to CalMatters.
San Francisco State University has restructured its Title IX office and added an investigator, according to Lori Makin-Byrd, interim Title IX Coordinator. Photo by Semantha Norris, Calmatters
Building trust through communication and victim support
To restore trust on campuses, the Cozen report recommended campus Title IX offices communicate with students and employees more quickly and in more personable, easy-to-understand ways.
Quick communication helped Fresno State chemistry senior TJ Lake, a nonbinary student, get a discriminatory practice fixed at the campus testing center. Lake was repeatedly misidentified with their “deadname,” or previous name, on testing documents. After a meeting, the Title IX coordinator helped the testing center resolve the issue within a month. Lake received confirmation via email and felt satisfied with the timeframe.
But in another case, Lake said they were being repeatedly misgendered by the doctor and staff in the Student Health and Counseling Center as they sought gender-affirming care. Lake emailed the Title IX Office in April 2023, and was bounced between the anti-discrimination office and the Title IX office when they were still operating separately at Fresno State. At one point, the Title IX coordinator emailed Lake a 90-page PDF of the school’s Title IX policy, including definitions of misconduct and options available. The legalese confused Lake, who was unfamiliar with the terms presented.
“I think just more communication and explanation would make it a lot better,” Lake said.
By June, Lake filed a Title IX complaint against the campus health center. The Title IX coordinator emailed Lake in August suggesting an informal resolution rather than an investigation and attaching the 90-page PDF again. Lake ultimately decided to go through with the informal resolution “to see how that goes,” email records show.
Per the final resolution agreed to by Lake and Janelle Morillo, associate vice president of Student Health, Counseling and Wellness, the university found an off-campus gender-affirming care provider for Lake, who remains on a waitlist there to receive treatment. The Student Health and Counseling Center also agreed to provide training related to LGBTQ+ support to its staff, which it has accomplished, Morillo said. Additionally, the campus health center now has a “trained medical team” specifically to help support transgender and nonbinary students.
The Title IX office at Fresno State helped chemistry senior TJ Lake with two cases of repeated misgendering, one at the testing center and the other at the Student Health and Counseling Center. Photo by Larry Valenzuela for CalMatters
Cal State is working to update its nondiscrimination policy by Aug. 1 to meet the Biden administration’s deadline for implementing new Title IX protections for transgender and nonbinary students, among other provisions, which 26 Republican-led states have sued to block. So far, judges have temporarily blocked the rule in 14 states.
In the Cozen survey, 24% of students, faculty and staff who chose not to report discrimination or assault said they did not trust the university process. A similar percentage didn’t report because they thought their university would not do anything.
Cal State Los Angeles alumna Esmeralda Gollas said she knew of the Title IX Office’s negative reputation at her university. But in her experience, she felt supported both times she reported cases, first for sexual harassment during her freshman year and then a sexual assault during her junior year. When reporting the assault, Gollas called the Title IX Office at 4:30 p.m., about 30 minutes before closing. The office’s coordinator stayed on the phone with her until 7 p.m., she said.
“They kind of talked me through what opening a case would mean if I wanted to press charges. They let me know, it’s not gonna be easy,” Gollas said. “They were very real with me, which I appreciated.”
She was directed to the campus police instead of the Title IX office because her assault occurred off-campus. Title IX offices respond to reports of incidents that occur on campus or during campus-sanctioned off-campus events, according to Cal State policy. Gollas didn’t pursue an investigation for personal reasons. During her reporting process, she received counseling through Cal State Los Angeles’ contracted victim advocate service, Peace Over Violence.
“I felt very listened to,” she said. “I think they did the best they could with what I was willing to agree to at that time.”
The Cozen report acknowledges campus advocates play an integral role in supporting students and employees who’ve experienced sexual harassment or assault. At Sonoma State, Amanda’s case advocate, Susan Pulido, provided her support, even after retiring in May 2023. Pulido walked students through the Title IX process and, upon request, attended every Title IX intake meeting. According to Pulido, some students told her she was one of the only people validating their experiences. The Title IX intake process can be “cumbersome” and confusing, Pulido said. There’s no one to explain the steps, so the advocate is there to answer any questions.
“And they can get honest feedback and honest information,” Pulido said.
The Cozen report recommends a campus-employed case advocate attend each intake meeting. According to the report, each university had at least one advocate but more would help spread the workload. The report also suggested campuses add a designated advocate for those who are accused of harassment or assault, which only five campuses had at the time of the report.
Sustaining Title IX changes over time
The California State Auditor identified the Chancellor’s Office as responsible for the failings at each campus Title IX office. The audit recommended policies for hiring procedures, adding a more in-depth data tracking system, and clarifying procedures for investigations. The Assembly Committee on Higher Education then called out Cal State and other California higher education systems in a February 2024 report, which provided further recommendations for each campus and oversight guidance statewide.
“It’s really important that we are deliberative and thoughtful in our process,” Schwartzkopf told CalMatters. “And it’s very important that we get it right. You don’t want to rush through these kinds of changes. And so if we need additional time, then we need to take that time to get it right for our campuses and for our communities and for our students and for our employees.”
The Board of Trustees will receive a progress report on Title IX reforms from Cal State staff during its bimonthly meeting July 22 to 24.
Wilson is a fellow with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.
