Hamilton’s Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Board (HSMB) released their annual report this past Tuesday via all-campus email. The report detailed and summarized all complaints made during the 2016–17 year. The Title IX Coordinator, then Lisa Magnarelli, who is now the Director of College Events and Scheduling, received a total of 22 potential violations of the College’s Sexual Misconduct Policy.
Only eight of the complainants opted to pursue formal complaints. Of these eight complaints, four determined the respondent to be responsible. In all four cases, the sanction was expulsion.
Although the college reported four expulsions, the email also states, “the matters referenced above may include cases with common parties.”
Ashley Place, current Interim Title IX Coordinator, followed up on this email 24 hours later in order to clarify on these common-party cases, stating “the complaints from last year included a total of four sanctions of expulsion which resulted in two students being expelled.”
These two expulsions were the only sanctions extended in the 2016–17 academic year, contrary to last year, when sanctions included suspensions and disciplinary points. This would mean that of the 22 reported potential violations, only two students were formally sanctioned, both with expulsions.
Along with eight formal complaints, there were fourteen additional reports. Of these fourteen reports, only six resulted in action, all of which were no contact orders. Of the eight cases which did not result in punishment, five stemmed from student reports, two from Campus Safety reports, and one from a friend. In each of these eight cases, the student, whether they self-reported or had their incident reporting by a friend of Campus Safety, did not wish to pursue the incident further.
The Title IX Coordinator also received three reports regarding behavior that may have fallen under the Harassment and Discrimination policy, but these students opted not to pursue the incident further as well.
The number of complaints made during the 2016–17 surpassed those made during 2015–16, jumping from 19 to 22. Similarly, the number of students expelled increased from zero to two.
Additionally, although the number of reported cases increased from 2015–16 (19) to 2016–17 (22), the number of sanctions decreased from six to four. While the 2015–16 report was quite clear that these six sanctions were distributed across six students, the 2016–17 report makes no such distinction.
