In May, the University of Vermont experienced one of the largest protests in its history.
Thousands of students walked out of class to protest the university’s handling of sexual assault on campus. On the steps of the Waterman Building, survivors shared their stories of sexual violence and how UVM administrators didn’t do enough to hold the perpetrators accountable.
The walkout prompted university officials to agree to 17 demands laid out by students, which aimed to reform UVM’s sexual assault response.
The first demand on the students’ list was that UVM conduct an independent investigation into its Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Title IX Office, and the university agreed to an “independent audit.” But now, the university says it has no plans to release those findings once a report is produced.
Campus advocates say the decision contradicts the motivation behind their demand — to rebuild trust with the community.
Though the students demanded an investigation, “there is no investigation, but a review of processes and functions of AAEO,” Joel Seligman, a UVM spokesperson, told VTDigger via email. “The administration does not have plans to share the report of the review.
“UVM periodically reviews the performance of its administrative offices in the interest of continuous improvement,” he said. “The review of AAEO mentioned in last week’s message to campus is underway and expected to conclude later this summer.”
He did not respond to requests for interviews with administrators.
Nick Stanton, UVM’s Title IX coordinator, and Erica Caloiero, vice provost of students affairs, also did not respond to requests for comment from VTDigger.
The university hired a consulting firm, Grand River Solutions, to conduct the review of the Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Office, a step that was made known to the UVM community in a campus-wide email in late July. The email also said the report will be delivered to UVM President Suresh Garimella later this summer.
Caroline Shelley, a rising senior and chair of the Title IX Student Advisory Committee, said she asked Stanton at a recent meeting whether the report would be released to the public. Because Stanton is a part of the office being investigated, he said, he didn’t know.
“I think the failure to release this report to the public does beg the question, what is the university hiding?” Shelley told VTDigger in reaction to the university’s decision. “If you have nothing to hide, you should release the report to the public.”
She said students requested an independent investigation into the office because there’s a feeling in the UVM community that Title IX investigators have mismanaged cases. She said that reputation has caused rampant mistrust of the office, and the report was intended to repair that somewhat.
In not releasing the report, Shelley said, the university is sending a message to survivors — who already don’t trust the school’s sexual violence reporting systems — that administrators don’t intend to fully hold themselves accountable.
“The least the university can do after allowing so many students for so many decades to experience sexual violence, with little to no institutional support, is to be transparent about the office’s failings up to this point, fix them and regain the community’s trust,” Shelley said.
She said her committee will ask the university to release the report to the public when it meets later this month.
Syd Ovitt, a 2021 graduate of UVM and founder of Title IX reform group Explain the Asterisk, said it’s frustrating but not surprising that the university is not disclosing the report.
“All these people were coming forward about how awful they felt being treated by the Title IX system,” Ovitt said. “How are we supposed to know if they make any changes when we don’t even know what those changes that were recommended are?”
She also questioned the consulting group that UVM has employed to conduct the review. On Grand River Solutions’ homepage, it states, “We are committed to lowering the resource-intensive and monetary costs of compliance,” referring to Title IX rules. Ovitt said it’s disheartening to see this organization centering financial priorities over the needs of survivors.
She said she would have preferred that the university work with a sexual violence prevention organization to assess its Title IX office’s effectiveness. The firm UVM hired seems more oriented toward improving the university’s image, not its systems, she said.
While the university has said it is committed to addressing the demands laid out by students, Ovitt said she thinks UVM has never fully acknowledged the harm it has done to survivors.
“There’s never really been an acknowledgment of all the hurt and the trauma that people endured,” Ovitt said. “They don’t mention all the survivors who came forward and were doing this work at the end of the year in their press releases or their emails.”
Editor’s Note: Descriptions of the report have been amended in the story and headline to better indicate that it remains in progress. UVM describes the process to produce the report as a “review.” A quotation from Seligman has been corrected.