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Simon speaks up on federal assault investigation

February 25, 2014

Speaking on the investigation for the first time publicly, Simon described it as a “review,” and said she looks forward to working with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

This comes after a statement MSU spokesman Kent Cassella gave to The State News on Monday, in which he said that “MSU responded fully and appropriately to the incident under investigation.”

It remains unclear whether OCR is investigating one particular sexual assault incident.

In an email to The State News sent Monday, Department of Education spokesman Jim Bradshaw said the nature of the student focus groups and office hours for the MSU community were “related to OCR’s investigation of Title IX sexual harassment and violence complaints pending against the university.”

Simon stressed that MSU would not discuss the specifics of students who have gone through the judicial process, saying MSU is only “hiding” individual sexual assault cases.

“What that in short means is that because of FERPA and other rules we aren’t going to talk about individu al cases that involve particular students,” she said. “We’re hiding individual cases because if you were a student having gone through the judicial process, however the case is resolved, we are not going to discuss specifics to that case.

“I f it’s about the record of the cases and the distribution of the cases and the process of the cases, those are part of the general reviews we’ve been doing in Academic Governance,” Simon explained.

At the University of Michigan, OCR is investigating one specific case, responding to two complaints made about U-M’s handling of rape accusations against former Wolverine football player Brendan Gibbons. Gibbons, a former kicker, was “permanently separated” from U-M in December.

Details of the complaints made at MSU remain a mystery, as neith er the Department of Education nor MSU would provide insight into the nature or scope of the allegations.

At the meeting, Simon reaffirmed that MSU takes every sexual assault case seriously, and said she feels MSU has been “relatively straightforward with issues that campus is facing.”

“We have been working with the Steering Committee of Academic Governance on a variety of policy changes and approaches regarding sexual violence,” she said.

Simon also said academic governance has been submitting policy changes to OCR.

OCR representatives will be on campus Feb. 27 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in room 112 Olds Hall and from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in room 13 of Olds Hall to inform the MSU community of the effectiveness of ongoing sexual violence training and prog rams currently available on campus, as well as the on-campus climate of safety.

Managing Editor Lauren Gibbons contributed to this report.

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