Messages should focus on reducing risk factors, come from all parts of campus, and reach constituents multiple times.

Review of Campus Code

• Prior to conducting training for campus disciplinary or judicial boards, a campus should review the current code of student conduct and ensure that the code:

• Is victim/survivor-centered, in that it recognizes the effects of trauma and minimizes the burdens often placed on victims/survivors

• Defines a clear and concise disciplinary process

• Defines uniform and consistent sanctions 

• Identifies and clearly defines intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and stalking

• Addresses privacy and confidentiality issues

General Training Topics

All members of campus disciplinary boards, including faculty, staff, students, and administrators should receive expert training on gender-based violence prevention and response. Training topics could include:

• Information about the causes and effects of gender-based violence

• A review of the student conduct code

• Definitions of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

• Information on the issue of consent in sexual assault cases

• How to judge credibility

• Drug-facilitated sexual assault 

• The available range of sanctions should the alleged perpetrator(s) be found responsible by the disciplinary board

General Considerations

The structure of campus disciplinary boards or judicial boards varies widely. Some boards are made up of faculty and administration officials while others are comprised of student representatives. Campuses should design all trainings in close collaboration with experts on gender-based violence issues.

When designing and implementing training programs, campuses should consider the following issues:

• The differences between the processes of the criminal justice system and those involved in the academic judicial/disciplinary system

• Ensuring that the training is continuous and ongoing so that all new members of the judicial/disciplinary boards receive information, especially if the board is appointed on a rotation

• Maintaining retention of “trained” board members given the complexities and difficulties of such cases

• Creating training that is effective and does not “promote bias” for either victims/survivors or offenders

• Ensuring that all judicial/disciplinary cases are pursued in the same manner, regardless of who the victim/survivor and/or offender may be

• Confidentiality issues

• Working with law enforcement officials from the local jurisdiction

• States laws on sexual and intimate partner violence and stalking:

  • Domestic Violence

  • Sexual Violence

Specific Training Topics

When developing trainings for disciplinary or judicial boards, campuses should also address the following specific topics:

• Reasons why victims/survivors may or may not choose (and/or wait) to report 

• Ways that the disciplinary system can re-traumatize victims/survivors

• The importance of avoiding blaming victims/survivors

• Recognizing the unavoidable presence of unconscious, implicit bias, and strategies for recognizing and mitigating the impact of such biases. Review of general IPV information including issues of power and control. 

• Dating violence as a form of intimate partner violence, including relevant laws

• “Known” perpetrator sexual assault 

• Characteristics of stalking in a campus environment

• Social media/online dating

Recommendations for Title IX Coordinators and Campus Disciplinary Professionals

Ensure All Professionals Involved in the Title IX and Disciplinary Process Receive Trauma-Informed and Racial Justice Oriented Training

Each institution structures its Title IX and campus disciplinary process in a different way; therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all list of who should be trained. Commonly included groups are: Title IX and deputy Title IX coordinators, Title IX investigators, hearing officers, appellate officers, advisors, advocates, and case managers. If students have roles in the institution’s process, they should be trained as well.

1. The training should be extensive, ongoing, research-based, and should include in-depth information on

   1. the dynamics of gender-based violence 

   2. the use of alcohol/drugs as a tool to facilitate sexual assaults 

   3. the pattern of power and control in abusive relationships

   4. the use of technology in stalking 

   5. the role of social media

   6. overcoming victim/survivor-blaming attitudes  

2. The training should cover the neurobiology of trauma, and trauma-informed interviewing techniques should be highlighted. Specifically, participants should learn how trauma impacts brain functioning and the ways this affects victims’/survivors’ actions during an assault, their behavior and decision making after an assault, and how they remember and report the assault.

3. All trainings should be racial justice oriented and reflect the understanding that gender-based violence is rooted in oppression. Specific information on culturally relevant interviewing techniques should be highlighted. Additional content should include dismantling barriers to resources that marginalized groups face and working with students in culturally relevant and inclusive ways.

4. Title IX coordinators should ensure that trainings are planned in collaboration with community-based sexual and domestic violence agencies and campus-based advocates (if applicable). Community-based agency staff members have experience training allied professionals on these issues. Along with campus-based advocates, they will also have a sense of how victims/survivors experience the system and where breakdowns commonly occur.