Episode 20: Filling the Title IX and Clery Gap in Schools and Universities with Jodie Shipper, Part 1

Feb 27, 2020

Title IX and Clery procedures are complex and ambiguous for all parties involved, but the importance of maintaining an institutional culture that upholds these laws cannot be overstated. Following Clery legislation should not stop at mere compliance either. In this episode, Courtney talks with Jody Shipper, a nationally recognized subject-matter expert in Title IX and related fields, about her approach in working with universities and colleges in Title IX compliance.

They talk about the intersection of Clery and Title IX, and common Clery mistakes Jody sees in the work she does with clients. Jody talks about the complexities around filing timely reports, typical daily and yearly duties of logging data, and ways schools can get better at their Annual Service Reports. Jody sets the benchmark where it should be as far as Title IX and Clery procedures, so make sure you learn all you can from her in this episode.

 

Key Points From This Episode:

• Why Jody studied employment law: her interest in the prevalence of restaurant harassment.
• A merging of Jody’s investigations and trauma work that occurred at her university job.
• Grand River Solutions’ services: filling Clery and Title IX-related gaps at universities.
• The overarching mission at GRS: optimizing ASRs at schools and building safer communities.
• How merely obeying compliance as an institution is a bare minimum to be exceeded.
• The tendency to overlook Clery while setting up Title IX offices on campuses.
• Clery driven data capturing processes: daily incident logs, and annual security reports.
• Understanding timely warnings and when to issue them.
• Confusion around timely warnings.
• The fine line between victim blaming and giving due warning in releasing timely reports.
• ASR errors: starting late, leaving out information, being overburdened, not publishing them.
• Ways to get around aborted ASRs: committees, backup plans, and checklists.
• Ignorance of definitions of school jurisdiction and the challenge it poses to Clery.
• Another Clery error: misclassifying a crime, especially around referrals.

 

Tweetables:

“People bandy around this phrase, ‘A culture of compliance.’ That’s a nice way to put it, that we have an institution where everyone will comply with all the rules. I always think of it as a baseline. Of course you have to do that piece, but can we do better?” — @JodyShipper [0:15:51]

 

“I think it’s really important to make clear somewhere in that timely warning that no one is responsible for being the victim of a crime. You didn’t choose to be the victim of that crime.” — @JodyShipper [0:28:54]

 

“Once you’ve pulled your ASR together you’re not done. You need to publish it. You need to send it out to people in your community and you also need to submit it to the department of education.” — @JodyShipper [0:28:54]

 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Jodie Shipper on LinkedIn

Grand River Solutions

Jeanne Clery

ICS Lawyer

Title IX University

Hot Topics in Title IX Conference

Upcoming Webinars

The Law and Higher Ed Podcast

Courtney Bullard on Twitter

Courtney Bullard on LinkedIn