Annual Title IX/Sexual Harassment Report

Dear Stanford community,

Today, we are releasing the Annual Title IX/Sexual Harassment Report. The report contains information on how the university responded to reported concerns of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and gender discrimination involving students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty, and staff during the period from Sept. 1, 2021, to Aug. 31, 2022.

You can view the entire report here: https://equity.stanford.edu/reports.

The Office of Institutional Equity and Access prepared the report from data collected by Stanford’s SHARE Title IX Office and Human Resources/Employee Labor and Relations. The data are presented without revealing details about particular cases in order to respect the privacy of affected individuals.

The number of reported incidents of prohibited conduct in 2021-22 was 214, an increase from the previous year. Among the outcomes of cases during this reporting period were seven employee terminations and one student expulsion.

In 2018-19, there were 279 reported incidents. In 2019­­-20 that number dropped to 187. In 2020-21, the number continued to decline to 98 reported incidents. Due to COVID-related restrictions, our daily campus population was greatly reduced during 2020 and 2021, which affected the number of reported cases during those years.

Please note that the report reflects cases reported to the SHARE Title IX Office on an academic-year basis. Reports of sexual offenses also come in to the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and are reported annually, on a calendar-year basis, in the Annual Safety, Security, and Fire Report. Those reports include reports from mandated reporters under the Clery Act, a federal law that was passed in 1990. Because both the sources and the timing of information included for these two reports are different, their numbers do not match.

Prevention education efforts

Stanford’s Title IX/Sexual Harassment Report also provides information about prevention education efforts. SHARE Title IX’s prevention efforts increased substantially in the past year, including mandatory training on sexual harassment prevention across all four undergraduate classes, as well as continuing the required comprehensive bi-annual training for all faculty and staff. In partnership with the Office of Substance Use Programs Education & Resources (SUPER), the SHARE/Title IX Office also launched the PEERs (Prevent, Educate, Empower, Refer) program, which involves student health educators who facilitate workshops and other programming for the Stanford community.

Why we release this annual report

The university began releasing the annual Title IX/Sexual Harassment reports in the 2016-17 academic year. We believe it’s important to disclose information about the reports we receive and how they are handled, not only in the spirit of transparency but also to hold ourselves accountable as a community. We also hope that by making the data visible and accessible, it will encourage anyone experiencing unwanted sexual conduct to come forward so that the issue can be addressed. Information about support and resources can be found at https://sexualviolencesupport.stanford.edu.

Incidents of sexual harassment and sexual violence can have significant and long-lasting impacts on the individuals who experience them. Our goal is to decrease the incidents of sexual misconduct and accelerate much-needed cultural change on our campus. We want to ensure that our university is a safe and respectful place to live, work, and study. Reaching that goal will require the involvement of every member of the campus community.

We hope you will take some time to review the report. We welcome your feedback at
provost@stanford.edu.

Sincerely,

Persis Drell,
Provost

Patrick Dunkley,
Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community

Stephen Chen,
Title IX Coordinator and Director of SHARE Title IX