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The regents of Iowa’s three public universities have approved new policies for the investigation of campus sexual misconduct in the wake of a bungled response to a sexual assault complaint at the University of Iowa last fall.
In September of this year, an independent investigation found that administrators had mishandled an incident in which a student claimed that two football players raped her in a dorm room. According to the report, the university failed to provide complete and coherent information to the student throughout the complaint and investigation process and acted ineffectually in responding to her reports of harassment on campus after she filed the complaint.
In the past six months two UI faculty members have committed suicide while under investigation for sexual misconduct. In August, a political science professor shot himself while facing criminal prosecution for soliciting sexual favors from four students in exchange for grades, and in November a music professor asphyxiated himself after a former student sued him for sexual harassment.
Back in the spring, Arkansas law professor Richard Peltz brought a defamation lawsuit against two law students who had circulated a letter accusing him of racism in the classroom. At the time, the students’ lawyer argued that a charge of racist behavior, “in the context of public discourse at a law school,” was not grounds for legal action.
Peltz requested and received an investigation of his actions by administrators, and in October the school’s interim dean gave Peltz a letter stating that his investigation had revealed “no evidence that you are or have been a racist … during your employment at the law school.”
Saying that he brought the lawsuit to force the university to take a stand on his behavior, Peltz then dropped the suit and circulated a nine-page memo responding to the charges that had been made against him.
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