It has been close to two and half years since the #NeverOK campaign began. Having launched in Freshers’ Week of 2017, its presence was made known on campus with posters down the Parade and teal blue badges that are sported on jackets and bags – ‘#NeverOK’ has become a regular phrase in Bath students’ lexicon. In this time, a lot has changed on campus and there has been a significant shift across the sector and across society. Incidents such as the Warwick’s rape chat scandal have acted as a catalyst for regulatory bodies to become more proactive in providing support and guidance for institutions on this issue. Having worked on this campaign since its inception, I thought it was important to share a full update of where we are, what has changed and what more needs to change.
Where did the campaign come from?
The topic of sexual misconduct has long been brushed under the carpet in the sector. Historically, there has been a notable lack of guidance available from the regulator and other sector bodies: institutions were left to their own devices, allowing reputation to be preserved over listening to survivors’ voices. The last report that came out on this issue was woefully inadequate Zellick report in 1994 (a report based on a case of false accusation). It placed reputation of universities above reporting parties.
The NUS (the National Union of Students) published a seminal report on Lad Culture in 2010. Since then, the topic of sexual misconduct has been a core theme in the national student movement, particularly from the women’s campaign. There have been numerous reports on this topic over the last decade from law firms, consultancy groups, and regulatory bodies (see below for a full breakdown of all the reports for further reading). This has been crucial in advancing thought and action in this area.
In 2016, as HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England, now the Office for Students) funding was made available for institutions across the sector. In doing so, institutions finally plunged in and bid for funding. The broad prevailing thought at the time was that publically addressing would highlight the problem exclusively at individual institutions. Moving ‘with the crowd’ allowed them to not be seen to stick their head above the parapet.
This approach worked and 65 providers signed up. Since then, two further tranches of funding have been made available to tackle racial and religious hate crime. The University and The SU worked in partnership to bid for the money. We were successful in all three bids.
Raising Consciousness – its gets the people going
Beginning in September 2017, The SU’s began its work. As a Freshers’ Week Event Manager at the time, I developed training influenced by the international campaign ‘Good Night Out’. We ensured that Freshers’ Week Captains were trained in handling disclosures and familiarized them with the topic of sexual violence and how it would manifest itself on our campus. Since then, over a 1,000 student leaders have been trained in ‘Bringing in the Bystander’ training, an accredited programme that was developed at the University of New Hampshire. The training works on the premise that we all play a role in our community to call out inappropriate behavior when we see it, ensuring that the people around us are safe. Student leaders across the The SU – captains of teams, welfare and inclusivity officers, hall reps, peer mentors – have been trained to call out inappropriate behavior that they see or signpost to an appropriate member of staff or service. This year 150 students have also begun attending sessions with the Good Lad initiative from Lacrosse, Hockey, Football and Rugby clubs.
Friday Night Fever
Recognising that student have a social life in town was also a new area for us to explore so we utilized our seat on the SCP (Student Community Partnership) to begin work in town to keep our students on nights out. The SCP consists of the two Universities and their SU’s, Bath College and its SU and Norland College, local councillors and a number of local partners. We have teamed up with venues in town that we partner with (Komedia, Moles, and Second Bridge) to work with their bar staff and security to make our night out in town safer through training and sharing good practice. There is still work to be done in this area, due to the high turnover of staff the approach and care that we would like can be a bit hit and miss. In order to codify this better, we are working with local licensing officers to make this more thorough and consistent. Our hope is that this is a city wide initiative where more bars and clubs pick this up, making nights out safer for students and local residents.
Crafting a Structure that Works
Last year, The SU reviewed its articles of governance. This was passed in an SU wide referendum. There was also a review of our complaints and disciplinary procedure. This now allows for clarity around expectations and punishments should the need arise. As a quick point of note, serious cases of misconduct within The SU are immediately passed on the University as they have more investigative capacity and expertise to handle these cases. They have our cooperation for CCTV or statements should the incident have taken place on our premises.
The most strident action that we have taken has been preventing men’s rugby union from competing in Varsity with Cardiff Met this year due to their poor behaviour early on in the academic year. We believe that this will allow the SU space for future escalation of sanction should the behavior continue and serve as an example to other groups in our community.
We have been a core part of the consultative process with the University when it comes to changing the policies and procedures (more on this under ‘Long Awaited Change’). We have changed University Regulations (7 and 8) and reviewed the Dignity and Respect Policy. The SU sits at all levels continuously reviewing the procedure, voicing our concerns and challenging the University to do better for its students. There is always room for improvement when it comes to this work.
The University, an Unmovable Giant
The University as an institution remains difficult to shift, influencing change is slow. It is easier, with sector regulation and other cultural movements like the #MeToo movement. In parallel with the growth in institutions’ and the public’s consciousness on this topic, a lot of misinformation is being shared by the media and other social media outlets, the extent of the problem is often viewed in a very one- dimensional manner, which only perpetuates this issue. The University is often reluctant to engage with the topic for fear that work like this is too much of an overstretch, when in reality, it is long overdue. I would also strongly caveat this statement with some members of staff (albeit too few) working exceptionally hard to ensure all of the SU’s demands are met trying to make the University more ambitious in its endeavors in this area.
Painting the picture.
In 2018 the University and the SU launched a Report and Support tool. This allowed students to report in incidents that they faced to different support services across the institution. It has had a large amount of success and reports have increased year on year. The increase of reports being made suggests the growing confidence of student in the tool and is the first step in beginning to build a picture of the scale of harassment.
The tool however still has a lot of shortcomings which need to be addressed. This has been reported to a University group known as the Harassment Prevention Working Group. Our reports are disproportionately about sexual misconduct, even though there is the capacity to discuss race and religious hate crime. Complainants are also almost exclusively made by white female students. There remains works to be done to build trust with the student community especially those who are the most underrepresented to reassure them that their cases will be handled sensitively and effectively. Personally, there still needs to be a number of years of using the report and support tool for it to be truly reflective of the scale of problem on campus.
The ambiguity around anonymous reporting has also resulted in people feeling their cases have not been handled effectively. The discussion with anonymity is twofold. On the one hand, it prevents further support and care to be provided to the students and their ability for the report to be carried forward. But on the other hand, we recognize it plays a critical role in notifying us of events happening or logging an incident with a student that we can revisit later with a student when they are ready to go forward with their case. The overriding factor in all of this is that often when people are reporting they are in need of support from a service provider. I have had a session with Feminism and Gender Equality to review the wording of the form and make changes to ensure that people have clarity and are more encouraged to make named reports. The changes are yet to be made by the University.
Long- Awaited Change
Over the summer of 2019, The SU worked with the University to review its Dignity and Respect Policy and Regulation 8 (the main disciplinary procedure). This was a monumental change for the University and long overdue. I cannot begin to imagine the extent of the survivors’ cases that have failed by the University in the years previously. As cases come through there will be further changes that will need to be made: this in no way is a static process, but seeing the amount of amendments and changes that have been made has been promising.
There has been discussion of how the University chooses to punish perpetrators. Fines are a key way of addressing this, although I do recognize the shortfalls of this approach as we are a ‘middle-class’ university and it rarely has tangible impact on the student. The University suggests a ban which the SU then implements, we are not party to information of the case. The SU bans are more ‘hard- hitting’ punishments as it prevents students from accessing different communities, events, and groups that they are a part of which play a key role in their student experience.
The next discussion is on the length of time the process takes. According to the OIA (Office of the Independent Adjudicator, they are a sector body that reviews complaints made against insitutions) they recommend that the process takes no longer than 60 days which is the standard the University works to. Separate to the Student Disciplinary process there is a Student Complaint Procedure where students are free to complain about any service on campus (academic, accommodation, student services etc.), this process takes 90 days and has no bearing on the disciplinary outcome of the case, it only reviews the procedure and the handling of the case.
The SU Officer team has also decided to remove Officers from University disciplinary panels to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. It allows us as Officers to be advocating for survivors and lobbying for improvements from the University without being compromised. Instead, we have created the paid role of the student insight attendees which will be put in place to offer opinions of the student experience. They will not be partaking in delivering verdicts on cases and disciplinaries but offering their expertise on the student experience. Punishments will be left to the panel that have been fully trained by a specialist, Clarissa J. Humphreys from Durham in handling cases like this. Student will still be able to access support with the process through the SU advisors in the Advice and Support Centre.
These changes have been welcomed by the SU as long overdue considering that the campaign started over three years ago. Students rightfully should expect to be safe on their campus and to have suitable pathways for justice to be provided when misconduct of this kind happens.
The University is now moving to create a student code of conduct for the next cohort of students which the SU will be consulted on. This will further augment and complement the work that has been previously been done on this issue.
The Plan Moving Forward – investment, transparency, and accountability.
With sector regulators on all fronts coming out in full force about this issue (more on this later), the University is being forced to move more swiftly on this issue or risk being fined. The University is looking to address gaps and overlaps in their procedure by creating a fully funded independent safeguarding unit which would conduct investigations, train staff, organise disciplinary panels, and aid students navigating the process. This would then allow Student Services to be freed up to provide the ongoing support to the survivor and alleged perpetrator. Currently disciplinary panels and support are both organized and provided by Student Services.
A core ask I retain is for new individuals recruited to be from diverse backgrounds to ensure appropriate expertise when conducting investigations, especially around race and religion hate crime as currently this is not the case. The creation of such a unit would require significant investment from the University. This is now more important than ever in light of movements like the Black Lives Movement and the demands from the Anti – Racist Forum that was held earlier this month. I imagine black students will return this October more incensed than ever demanding more from Bath than ever before. An investment like that suggest strong commitment that misconduct is taken very seriously at this institution. I hope to see this when I return in the future.
I write this series in full transparency to you, the students. It is important for people to know how cases are being handled as part of making informed decisions, building trust and just simply, as part of good practice.
Having spoken to the Chair of University Council (the governing body of the institution) there will now be annual reports that will go through University Executive Board (the senior management) and to University Council (effectively independent bosses who check their work). The report will cover the nature of incidents, demographics of those reporting, length taken to resolve, level the report progressed (i.e. appeal, office of the independent adjudicator (OIA)) lessons learnt, wider context of the trends being reported (i.e. have we got an increase in reports because of a change in what we have been doing with the campaign?) all in keeping in line with data privacy. Historically, reports of misconduct were numbers on a page reported to university sub-committees. Another essential ask is to be able to show this to the University community, with important caveats to ensure that data privacy is not being breached. I strongly believe the community should have the right to know how their cases are being handled and should not be exclusively reviewed behind closed doors.
Non- Disclosures Agreements, PhD supervisor issues, and changing the national picture.
In light of recent stories that have hit the press recently by Tortoise, most specifically of students being asked to sign NDA’s to keep quiet about their experiences, I have received assurances from the University legal team that this HAS NOT been the case at our University.
A point which is often looked over when discussing this issue is the experience of doctoral students. They can seek support from the University Independent Advisor Team (UIA) that provides them confidential and independent support around any issues they may have with their research, supervisor, finances, etc. For the purposes of this blog, when the issues of harassment between the supervisor’s team and student it becomes a serious issue. The UIA report details the extent of this issue on this campus and has been shown at Senate (the highest academic body of the University). One of the main priorities of the SU to ensure these students feel confident in raising their concerns of their supervisors.
The OfS have come out with a sector consultation which you can feed into. This will be the basic benchmark for institutions to meet.
As part of the NUS’ women’s working group which I currently sit on, I have been provided the opportunity to work on a joint project between AVA (Action Against Violence and Abuse) and UUK (Universities UK) to develop a framework for universities to measure their work on sexual violence. I want to keep fighting nationally to ensure that this is being heard by Universities across the country. The sector cannot continue failing survivors.
It is my hope that this has been reassurance to you, the student community. There is long overdue structural change that is finally being undertaken. However, we are still in the middle of a long journey ahead especially when dealing with hate crime on campus, especially in light of movements like Black Lives Matter. I am most proud of my contribution to this area of work over the past three years. I would like to reiterate my (and the Officer team’s) commitment to address this issue on campus in all of its complexity.
I recognize that there are survivors who are reading this who may be scared to speak out: I see you, and I hear you. I appeal to you that when you are ready, to please come forward. You are not alone. The SU is here for you and will always be championing you in classrooms, nightclubs, in town, to the University and nationally.
If you would like to speak to confidential advisor please book in an online appointment with an Advice and Support Centre or with Student Services. You can report here using the Report and Support tool.
In solidarity,
Your Community Officer 2018- 2020 - Alisha Lobo
Further links for reading:
2016 UUK report
The Pinsent Mason guidelines on misconduct.
The 1752 group report on staff – student misconduct.
NUS Lad Culture Survey