Year 1 Annual Report

June 2019 to June 2020

The Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education is an initiative where more than 60 colleges, universities, and other research and training institutions¹ are identifying, researching, developing, and implementing efforts that move beyond basic legal compliance to evidence-based policies and practices for addressing and preventing all forms of sexual harassment and promoting a campus climate of civility and respect. The Action Collaborative model brings together a coalition of the willing to work on a systemwide problem and to identify and develop innovative and evidence-based solutions. It does this by facilitating the exchange of information, ideas, and strategies around topics of mutual interest and concern, and by inspiring and supporting collective action among its member institutions.

The work of this Action Collaborative is guided by and builds on the National Academies report Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018), which outlines a series of recommendations for making systemwide changes in higher education that can prevent and address hostile environments and harassing behavior. To put these recommendations into practice and advance work on sexual harassment prevention across higher education, the Action Collaborative is pursuing four goals (Figure 1):

• To raise awareness about sexual harassment, its consequences, and the approaches for addressing and preventing it
• To share and elevate evidence-based policies and strategies for reducing and preventing sexual harassment
• To contribute to setting a shared research agenda for this work, and gather and apply research results across institutions
• To develop a standard for measuring progress toward reducing and preventing sexual harassment in higher education

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The institutions and organizations that are members of the Action Collaborative commit to taking the following actions each year (Figure 2):

• Developing new approaches to address the problem from a preventative orientation
• Implementing and testing new or revised programs, policies, and practices
• Sharing the results from these new or revised approaches
• Identifying and engaging a group of additional individuals at their institution or organization who can assist and inform this work, including experts, researchers, people with job responsibilities related to issues of sexual harassment, and key stakeholders including students and people who have experienced harassment

Since members are expected to share their work publicly each year, their efforts include actions in the planning stages, those in the process of being implemented and tested, efforts that are fully implemented, and those that are being revised. This process of open sharing allows the higher education community to learn from one another’s plans and results, informing the development of new approaches to addressing and preventing sexual harassment and informing the implementing and testing of such approaches.

This annual report for year 1 highlights the Action Collaborative’s overall progress toward its four goals and summarizes members’ actions during the first year that they considered their most innovative, novel, or significant work. A complete collection of member-authored “descriptions of work” is available at www.nationalacademies.org/sexual-harassment-collaborative-repository.

The Action Collaborative’s Progress in Year 1

Below is a list of significant accomplishments the Action Collaborative organized along its four main goals. A fifth area is added to note the collaborations that the Action Collaborative has facilitated.

Summary of Work by Action Collaborative Members in Year 1

A rubric was created to help organizations identify areas of work that are consistent with the findings and recommendations of the National Academies Sexual Harassment of Women report (2018). Action Collaborative members were asked to identify areas in which they had completed work or were conducting work since April 10, 2019, when the Action Collaborative was formed. This self-reported information is summarized below in an effort to identify areas where work is being done, and to help Action Collaborative members and the broader higher education and research community know where there are potential opportunities for innovative work or research.

To facilitate the sharing of actions taken, potential innovative ideas, and research on the effectiveness of actions, Action Collaborative members were also asked to provide at least one and up to five descriptions of their most significant, innovative efforts—either in the planning stages or being implemented—that are consistent with the Sexual Harassment of Women report’s findings and recommendations and are new for either the organization or higher education overall. These descriptions are summarized below and can be found in their entirety at www.nationalacademies.org/sexual-harassment-collaborative-repository.

It should be noted that some institutions have made plans or taken action in more areas than what they summarized in their descriptions of work. This is due, in part, to the Action Collaborative’s limiting members to five descriptions and also to the challenges during the summer of 2020 of preparing for the implementation of the new Department of Education Title IX rules and for a fall semester heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Given these challenges, it is significant that 50 of 62 member institutions were able to complete the rubric to note the areas where they did work in year 1, and 45 of 62 member institutions were able to submit at least one description of work in time for the publication of this annual report and the publication of the Action Collaborative’s Repository of Member Reported Actions. Institutions that were unable to meet our publication deadline expect to share their work by the end of the 2020 calendar year.

Trends in Members’ Reported Efforts

Based on how members filled out the rubric to note where they say they made plans or took action in the first year of the Action Collaborative, the majority of member organizations reported they did work in the prevention area (64 percent) and conducted climate surveys (55 percent). Within the prevention area, there is more focus on education or training programs, with members reporting that they are developing leadership-specific education and skill training (64 percent), bystander intervention programs (61 percent), and audience-specific education programs (61 percent). In an effort to address the culture at organizations, 64 percent of member organizations reported that they have been doing work to identify and reinforce community values so that they can set standards for what community members should live up to, rather than simply taking a punitive approach to the problem of sexual harassment. Additionally, 55 percent of member organizations report that they are doing work to embed values—specifically around diversity, inclusion, and respect—into their hiring, promotion, advancement, and admissions processes and policies. Lastly, reflecting research that shows that incivility is tied to gender harassment, 55 percent of member organizations reported that they are doing work to implement programs around civility or respect as a way to create environments where sexual harassment does not thrive.

While some areas have very little work being done at member institutions (as reported by members), it is significant that each area of work has at least one member that reports work in that area—meaning at least some attention is being paid to every area of the rubric. As noted below and in later sections of this report, some members are wading into topics where little work has been done, but which will hopefully lead to advances in these topics and to the development of innovative ideas that inspire change across higher education.

One of those areas is remediation. It is no surprise that work on remediating the harm of sexual harassment is one of the areas the fewest members report they are doing work, in part because this is an area

with little work to build on since organizations inside and outside higher education have not focused on it.² Yet, it is also encouraging to see that 11 percent of member organizations report they are working on efforts to honor targets of sexual harassment, 16 percent say they are working on strategies and programs to support and reintegrate people after sexual harassment occurs, and 16 percent say they are working on other efforts to remediate the harm of sexual harassment and/or support those who experience sexual harassment.

It is interesting to note that only 11 percent of member organizations report that they are working to treat sexual harassment as a violation of research integrity. Given that this is an area where new National Science Foundation³ and National Institutes of Health⁴ policies will be requiring action, attention to this area will likely increase in the future. Similarly, only 11 percent of member organization are conducting qualitative research on the experiences of sexual harassment, which suggests most organizations are relying on quantitative climate survey data or formal reports of sexual harassment to understand how harassment occurs at their organizations. As described in the 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report, qualitative research can be valuable in understanding how people experience or view certain processes or policies and can gather greater information about the experiences of individuals beyond climate survey data;⁵ therefore, the Action Collaborative hopes to see more higher education institutions conduct qualitative research as they move forward with understanding experiences and evaluating the effectiveness of prevention, response, and remediation efforts.

Summary of Work Being Shared by Members in Year 1

The following sections are based on the one to five descriptions of work that member institutions shared with the Action Collaborative. These sections provide a brief summary of the kind of work members shared and highlight some particularly novel work being done in the four major areas of prevention, response, remediation, and evaluation.

Prevention

Work on preventing sexual harassment was the area with the most work shared by members in the Action Collaborative. As detailed in the rubric, this work includes efforts around the following:

• Embedding the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring, promotion, advancement, and admissions
• Programs promoting civility or respect
• Leadership education and skill development
• Bystander intervention programs
• Audience-specific anti-sexual harassment education
• Ally or ambassador programs
• Prevention programs or toolkits
• The identification and reinforcement of community values

Work on preventing sexual harassment is an area that has recently garnered a lot of attention, especially around education and programs that go beyond the standard anti-sexual harassment trainings that are often

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used to comply with the law. Although increased attention in this space is encouraging, there is a significant need for evaluation of the effectiveness of such prevention efforts—not just immediately after the education program or implementation of a new policy, but also over a longer time span. In the coming years, the Action Collaborative hopes to see details on the evaluation and effectiveness of education and skill development programs and on efforts to reinforce community values. In addition, while there is a research base to show how certain practices can improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring, promotion, and advancement, in future years it will be important to connect these efforts to improvements in the organizational climate and culture, which is a strong predictor of the rate of sexual harassment in an organization.⁶

In sharing their prevention work, most Action Collaborative members describe efforts to embed the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion into hiring, promotion, advancement, and/or admissions. These efforts include using explicit inclusion of an individual’s work to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of assessments of excellence when considerations are made for hiring, advancement, promotion, and/or awards (University of California, Berkeley, and University of California, Santa Barbara, University of California, Santa Cruz); gathering more information before making hiring decisions, such as requesting self-disclosed information on past violations of policies related to behavior (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and University of Washington) and performing reference checks on applicants’ past violations of policies related to behavior (University of Washington and University of Wisconsin system); as well as creating policies to ensure people’s behavior is taken into consideration during reappointment, promotion, awards, and/or tenure (Rutgers University and University of California, Berkeley).

A number of leadership education and skill development programs focus on providing leaders with bystander intervention skills (Duke University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan (1) and (2)). A few institutions, following the research on the training backlash affect,⁷ describe how they encourage or incentivize their leaders to take education programs, earn a certificate, or become an official ambassador or ally, rather than mandating education (Duke University, University of California, Berkeley, Boston University, and Dartmouth College). One institution embedded the topic of preventing sexual harassment into a voluntary mentoring skill-development program that is intended to help support the growth of faculty members who want to becoming even better mentors to their students (Boston University). Another institution developed an education program around helping faculty recognize and assist students in distress (Carnegie Mellon University), an approach that could support those experiencing a wide variety of harms in addition to sexual harassment. Another approach to leadership education is updating existing orientations or workshops for faculty to include discussion of sexual harassment and how to support targets of harassment (Carnegie Mellon University). A couple institutions are developing or have developed trainings for specific types of leadership, such as at the department chair level (Northwestern University and University of California, Merced). One area of novel work related to leadership is the development of ambassador programs that prepare individuals (not necessarily in official leadership positions) to lead, inspire, and support change within departments and schools, or units in an institution (University of California, Riverside, and Dartmouth College).

Regarding work on anti-harassment and bystander education programs, many institutions share that they have begun to customize such programs for specific audiences, such as graduate students and faculty, or for specific fields or departments (Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Rutgers University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, San Diego, University of Michigan, and University of Tennessee). Often this is done by creating case studies and scenarios that are realistic or relatable to the audience. Another approach taken for improving anti-harassment education is to more explicitly include the topic of gender harassment (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, University of Michigan, and Wellesley College). One institution (University of Washington) shares that

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they are developing anti-sexual harassment education that takes a rather novel approach of using the prevention stages from the field of public health as a frame: primary (preventing harm before it happens through behavior and norms change), secondary (recognizing the harm and mitigating the effects of the harm in the moment), and tertiary (responding after the harm has already occurred). Another institution (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) shares that they are customizing education programs such that it is specific to the climate in a certain department (using focus group feedback from students and staff, school/department-level climate survey data, and national field data) and also conducting the program in lab-level intact groups to help shift culture within existing work groups.

Moving beyond education-focused prevention efforts that are education-focused, some member institutions (Argonne National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University) are taking action to identify and reinforce positive and shared community values and norms, as a way to uphold a culture and a climate that does not allow harassment to thrive. Efforts also include encouraging positive behaviors like civility and respect, rather than just focusing on what not to do. This includes programs to recognize and reward individuals for positive behaviors (Argonne National Laboratory), programs that provide information on how leaders can cultivate a climate of respect in their units (University of California, Berkeley, and University of Michigan), and the development of networks to share and discuss resources for creating and sustaining positive cultures (University of Minnesota).

The last area of prevention work is focused on developing prevention toolkits or programs to equip leaders at different levels with the guidance and resources to develop roadmaps and action plans for preventing sexual harassment that are specific to their communities and the unique environment and challenges it has. Such toolkits provide departmental leaders, for example, with specific information on their responsibilities as a departmental leader, guidance and resources for understanding and using climate survey data, and/or strategies for developing action plans tailored to their department or community (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, Rutgers University, and University of California, Berkeley).

Response

Although work on responding to sexual harassment has received attention for a number of years, the Action Collaborative’s focus on response efforts is centered around responding in ways that can help prevent future harassing behavior and can contribute to creating a climate where the community believes that: (1) reports of sexual harassment are taken seriously, (2) reporting sexual harassment is not risky, and (3) offenders face sanctions.⁸ As identified by the rubric and the 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report, this work includes efforts around the following:

• Improve policies
• Treat sexual harassment as a violation of research integrity
• Create trauma-informed response and education programs
• Provide anonymous and non-mandatory reporting resources and tools
• Implement restorative or transformative justice and alternative means of resolution
• Improve communication and increase transparency
• Address gender harassment and other bad behaviors

The most commonly shared response effort that Action Collaborative members worked on in year 1 is improving communication and transparency so that their communities have more knowledge about how sexual harassment is occurring and is addressed in their community—something that can improve the organizational climate and prevent future sexual harassment. This work includes increased transparency about the handling of reports of sexual harassment though statistical annual reports and improved communication about policies and resources (University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Santa Barbara, and University of Miami). Four institutions shared work they have done to improve transparency, communication, and accountability around findings of responsibility: two shared efforts around providing information during reference checks for employees (University of Washington and University of Wisconsin System) and two others shared work to take into account an individual’s sexual misconduct or other harassing or bullying behavior when faculty are being

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evaluated for reappointment, promotion, awards, and/or tenure (Rutgers University and University of California, Berkeley).

Some institutions shared improvements to their policies that they hope will improve their communities’ understanding of the policy, what types of behavior are problematic, what happens when someone violates the policy, the options for reporting sexual harassment, to whom the policy applies, timelines for handling a report, and/or the range of consequences for violating the policy (for example, Michigan State University and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). One institution, (Argonne National Laboratory) shared how they explicitly acknowledge in their research code of conduct that “the prevention of sexual harassment and recognition and understanding of bias are key elements of research integrity.”

The use of and thoughtful plans for setting up ombuds offices is one of the ways that member institutions shared they are doing work to provide anonymous and non-mandatory reporting resources and tools (International Ombudsman Association and Argonne National Laboratory). Another institution developed an anonymous online disclosure tool that works with a third-party vendor to provide the anonymity and relay information back to the individual experiencing sexual harassment about resources and support (Harvard University). One institution shared its ongoing efforts to revise mandatory reporting policies to a policy that has more limited mandatory reporting and instead more mandatory supporting (University of New Mexico)—a change that reflects emerging research on the harm that mandatory reporting policies can have.⁹

Only a few institutions shared work underway on restorative or transformative justice and alternative forms of resolution. For instance, two (Duke University and the University of Minnesota) shared plans for implementing a restorative justice pilot program for use with faculty in their medical schools, a novel area of work that is being done in collaboration with Association of American Medical Colleges. A third institution (University of Chicago) shared its work on developing and providing a range of alternative forms of resolution.

Remediation

Work on remediating the harm from sexual harassment is desperately in need of attention and has historically not been a focus for organizations, both inside and outside of higher education. Despite this, it is encouraging to see that some organizations are stepping up to begin this work. As described in the rubric and the 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report, remediation work includes efforts around the following:

• Provide confidential resources and support services
• Honor targets of sexual harassment
• Prevent retaliation against targets of sexual harassment
• Reintegrate people
• Reduce power differentials between members of a campus community

Most member institutions that shared about work in the area of remediation detailed efforts to increase confidential resources and support services. This includes the creation of a resources kit to aid in the consideration and establishment of ombuds offices as well as to help existing ombuds become more effective (International Ombudsman Association); the creation of an ombuds office (Argonne National Laboratory); the expansion of support services or confidential advisors to campus locations where these services were not accessible before (University of New Mexico and Vanderbilt University Medical Center); and the development of plans for an informal conflict resolution team, which includes both confidential and non-confidential resources and support, and is aiming to provide increased support to people concerned about using the formal complaints process after the changes required by the U.S. Department of Education Title IX rules (University of California, Merced). As the work to provide support services continues and new approaches are developed, it will be important to review and evaluate the experiences of individuals using such new support services to ensure that there are no unintended consequences or negative effects and to ensure that the existence of these services are effectively communicated to the community.

The other primary remediation effort by members is to reduce power differentials between members of

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a campus community. For instance, two member institutions focused on power differentials for students, sharing that they have implemented 360 degree reviews¹⁰ for faculty (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and initiated a program that will evaluate the mentoring and advising experiences for graduate students (Harvard University). Two other members (University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the University of New Mexico) have focused on power differentials among faculty, sharing that they have developed policies and practices to provide faculty mentoring, particularly for new hires.

The most novel work reported by an Action Collaborative member in the remediation space is the work by the University of California, Santa Cruz, to develop a guide that provides information about processes, responsible parties, and recommended solutions for addressing negative consequences that a graduate student who has experienced and reported sexual violence or sexual harassment might encounter. The guide (1) lays out a range of issues that a graduate student in these situations might experience (e.g., loss of advisor or letter writer, financial impacts due to loss of teaching assistant position, challenges meeting residency if the student moves away from campus to access support), (2) identifies a point person or persons and any units with ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the issue is addressed (e.g., department chair, director of graduate studies, dean, provost), (3) lists other individuals or groups that may need to be involved (e.g., department chair, Title IX office), and (4) suggests the types of remediation the point person(s) or unit should consider and whom they might consult in moving forward with remediation. This novel work is still in the process of being reviewed by different groups on the University of California, Santa Cruz, campus and has yet to be implemented.

No member institutions have yet shared novel work on honoring targets of sexual harassment (which would convey that it is an honorable and courageous act when targets, victims, or survivors report such harassment) or preventing retaliation. The Action Collaborative will continue to encourage member institutions and others to work in these areas in hopes of inspiring significant work on these important areas.

Evaluation

Evaluation work focuses not just on assessing environments for the prevalence of sexual harassment experiences, but also on how to use and communicate those data. Additionally, there are two other important and much-needed aspects of evaluation: (1) assessing the effectiveness of prevention programs, policies, and procedures; and (2) understanding how underrepresented, disempowered, and/or vulnerable groups—such as women of color, disabled people, immigrants, sexual and gender minorities, and people with less power according to their position in the institution such as postdoctoral trainees and graduate students—experience and are harmed by sexual harassment and other forms of harassment and discrimination that can be perpetrated simultaneously.

Of the member institutions that shared work on evaluation, most described efforts to either revise a climate survey, expand the surveyed population (often to include faculty and staff), or conduct a new survey. One institution that revised their climate survey (Rutgers University), shared how they revised their survey to focus more on sexual harassment, worked with groups across the institution to make changes to the survey, and are working to communicate and use the data to inform the development of campus policies and services. A second institution (University of Washington) shared how they created a new survey to examine sexual harassment among faculty, staff, and students; developed strategies for sharing the survey results; is conducting further analysis for specific to academic schools within the institution; and has created plans for using the data to inform action.

A couple of institutions shared about efforts and plans underway to conduct qualitative research, either to complement climate survey data (University of California, Santa Barbara) or as a stand-alone project (University of Minnesota). One member institution’s qualitative research is also an effort conduct needed research on understudied communities, in this case looking at LGBTQIA+ communities’ conceptions and behaviors related to sexual consent in order to inform prevention strategies for these communities (University of Minnesota). Another institution (University of Alaska) also contributed to effort to conduct needed research on understudied communities by using its climate survey data to examine how sexual orientation and gender affected the likelihood of experiencing sexual harassment—finding that non-heterosexual students were more likely to experience sexual harassment than heterosexual students (a finding that is consistent with other

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research cited in the 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report).¹¹ Lastly, one institution (University of Michigan) described an approach of combining multiple kinds of data—climate survey, focus groups and interviews, representation in hiring, current employment, and departures by race and gender—on a regular basis to monitor the climate.

Several institutions described how they are sharing data from their climate surveys in an effort to identify and reinforce community values (for example, the University of California, Berkeley), whereas others describe using the data either to inform institution-wide resources (for example, Harvard University) or as part of prevention toolkits that guide the development of action plans at the departmental level (for example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). In addition to sharing data to take action within an institution, the Action Collaborative hopes in future years to see more sharing of data, and gathering of data such that it can be used across institutions, in order to better understand this issue on a national scale.

Plans and Goals for the Future

As the Action Collaborative progresses over the next few years, it will build on the work and research done up to this point and address important gaps where more effort is critically needed. The 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report makes clear that addressing and preventing sexual harassment requires a multipronged approach to make the systemwide changes that go beyond compliance and toward tackling the systems, cultures, and climates that enable sexual harassment to thrive.¹² Thus the collaborative’s hope is to see more institutions and organizations, both in and beyond it, working in all four areas of prevention, response, remediation, and evaluation, and also collaborating and sharing to build a larger knowledge base around what actions are effective. Specific areas that the Action Collaborative will focus on in year 2 include the following:

• Gathering information on evaluation approaches, metrics, and mechanisms to assess efforts intended to address and prevent hostile environments and harassing behavior
• Sharing results from efforts to evaluate the effectiveness and consequences of novel actions, programs, or policies on communities within higher education, such as targets of sexual harassment; specific marginalized populations; and positional groups with less power like staff, postdoctoral scholars, students, adjunct faculty, instructors, and early-career faculty
• Identifying and publishing innovative ideas and promising practices, while looking out for evidence-based practices
• Identifying areas where research is needed, making the higher education and research communities aware of the need, and facilitating collaboration to advance research in these areas
• Compiling research to provide guidance and information on specific types of efforts (e.g., civility promotion programs, restorative justice, and statistical annual reports that share how an institution is handling harassment complaints)
• Examining research and identifying practices that address how sexual harassment, systemic racism, heterosexism, and other forms of discrimination combine to create hostile environments where all thrive

As the Action Collaborative continues its work, the rubric will be updated and improved to reflect growing research and new opportunities for actions to prevent harassment. The collaborative welcomes all to use and benefit from this tool, as well as make use of the plans, actions, and efforts that the member institutions shared. The Action Collaborative and the member institutions look forward to collaborating with the broader higher education and research community to advance and inform efforts to prevent harassment.

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