Regents: Wichita State leaders did not have to notify Title IX coordinator about alleged rape

The Kansas Board of Regents said in a letter this week that Wichita State University administrators were not required by federal law to notify the university’s Title IX coordinator of an allegation that a WSU athlete raped a woman off-campus.

Andy Tompkins, the Regents Board president, on Monday sent a letter to WSU’s vice president of student affairs, Wade Robinson, and former and current student body presidents Matt Conklin and Joseph Shepard notifying them of the board’s conclusion.

All three had written the regents asking them to study how the university handled the aftermath of the allegation and whether a four-day delay in notifying the student affairs office may have been too long according to Title IX guidelines. Shepard has also said there is a perception on campus that athletes receive preferential treatment.

The office of student affairs includes a conduct officer who is designated under Title IX to conduct any investigation of sexual harassment involving a student at the university.

In reaching their conclusion, the regents concurred with WSU president John Bardo and other campus administrators that there was no reason to immediately notify the office of student affairs and the Title IX officer. The alleged victim in the case was not a WSU student.

The regents said that administrators acted reasonably in the handling of the alleged rape, which was reported to police in 2013. No violations of the federal Title IX law occurred, the regents concluded.

Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits schools that receive federal funds from engaging in sex discrimination. The law also addresses sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Bardo could not be reached Tuesday afternoon for comment.

Wrong message?

Conklin, who was student body president until last month, said the decision disappointed him.

“They are obviously taking the side of Bardo,” he said. “People on campus are concerned about safety. It’s a big deal, and I just don’t think they get it.

“It is discouraging that the message they are sending to someone like me, who is trying to do the right thing and take some risks while doing it, results in a decision where they just pull up a few sentences they like out of documents and then outright dismiss everything we said.”

Scott Lewis, a national expert who has served as a consultant on Title IX laws and guidance for the White House Office of Violence Against Women and the Office of the Vice President, said WSU administrators’ behavior and the regents’ conclusion probably meet the “minimum standard” for obeying the current law. But he said it is not ideal, and they should be wary of such delays.

“Parents, students, the media, when things like this happen, will want to know why, when notification is only an e-mail away, only one phone call away, why was there a delay?” he said. “Why did it take four days to send an e-mail? That’s a fair question. And what was going on during that delay? It’s not in anyone’s best interests to delay reporting.”

He also pointed out that there was a major case four years ago in which a university delayed action and drew national attention. At Penn State University, he said, the perpetrator was not a university employee and his child victims were not Penn State students. And yet Title IX still ended up applying there.

On May 3, The Wichita Eagle reported that Robinson, the outgoing vice president of student affairs at WSU, had asked the Board of Regents to investigate whether Bardo, athletic director Eric Sexton and other leaders made decisions that Robinson says put students’ safety at risk two years ago.

In particular, Robinson told the regents that Bardo and Sexton did not notify anyone in the student affairs office for four days that a WSU basketball player had been accused of rape after an alleged off-campus encounter on April 21, 2013. Robinson said he was informed only as Wichita police began to brief local media about the case.

Robinson did not speak out publicly after that four-day delay or after he was informed in January that his appointment would not be renewed. But after Bardo on April 22 named Sexton to succeed him as vice president for student affairs, Robinson outlined his concerns to the regents and to The Eagle.

Not at risk

Bardo responded on May 4 with a statement to the campus saying he had never put students’ safety at risk and that concerns raised by Robinson in the newspaper story were not true.

Relevant facts, Bardo wrote, included that the alleged victim was not a student, the alleged assault did not happen on campus, and university police and the athletic department were involved with Wichita police in a timely way.

Wichita police later ended their investigation of the rape allegation with no one charged, citing lack of evidence.

“There was no cover-up,” Bardo wrote in the statement.

Tompkins, the Board of Regents president, said in the letter to Conklin and Robinson that there is nothing in Title IX guidance that indicated that the “Title IX coordinator be promptly notified for purposes of commencing a Title IX investigation under these circumstances.”

Tompkins indicated in his letter that under Title IX, the university would have to investigate a complaint that a student filed with the school. It may have to investigate a complaint filed by a nonstudent if the harassment happened on campus or involved one of WSU’s educational programs or activities.

“There would need to be a complaint filed by a victim that the conduct is contributing to a hostile environment for that victim before the Title IX requirement to investigate would attach,” Tompkins wrote.

“This is not to say that the Title IX coordinator should not be made aware of such situations. Title IX does require the University to identify, monitor and address any patterns of conduct that raises Title IX issues. We believe that making the coordinator aware of the report within four days of the University first receiving it is reasonable for this purpose.”

But Conklin disagreed, saying whoever advised the regents “gave them a very narrow reading of the requirements of Title IX.”

Both Conklin and Robinson also raised several other concerns about Bardo’s leadership at WSU. The regents’ letter to Robinson and Conklin addresses none of those concerns, and they will not address those concerns publicly, said regents spokeswoman Breeze Richardson.

“It is my understanding that the other concerns that were raised were of a personnel nature and therefore won’t be addressed publicly due to personnel considerations,” she said.

This story was originally published May 12, 2015 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Regents: Wichita State leaders did not have to notify Title IX coordinator about alleged rape."