Reporting is not supporting: Why mandatory supporting, not mandatory reporting, must guide university sexual misconduct policies

Policies that require most or all university employees to report any sexual misconduct they learn about to a designated university official, including victims’ names, even if the victim does not want such a report to be made, have been widely implemented in institutions of higher education (1). Despite the widely held belief that these “universal” mandatory reporting policies are both necessary and effective for addressing sexual misconduct, Title IX guidance and rulemaking have never required this practice and there is little evidence that confirms the efficacy of these policies (1, 2). As the Biden administration considers changes to the 2020 Title IX regulations and state legislatures consider laws that impose broad mandatory reporting policies in higher education (e.g., Texas Senate Bill 212 passed in 2019 and California Senate Bill 493 passed in 2020), we must evaluate the impact of broad mandatory reporting policies that compel involuntary disclosure and implement evidence-based, survivor-centered ways to provide effective support to victims of sexual misconduct in higher education. The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has engaged this issue through its 2018 report Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (3), pointing to growing research on the negative effects of universal mandatory reporting. At the 2020 Public Summit, the NASEM Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education convened Title IX practitioners and sexual violence researchers to further examine the consequences of universal mandatory reporting for survivors and employees, particularly when reports must include the victim’s name and when targets of sexual misconduct do not wish to report their experience to a university official. In this article, we build upon the discussions held in this panel and suggest alternative reporting policies that will better support survivors. Ungrounded Assumptions behind Mandatory Reporting Policies There are several problematic assumptions embedded in universal mandatory reporting policies. First, disclosures are assumed to be de facto reports. However, there is an important difference between disclosure and reporting: Disclosure involves directly and intentionally telling someone about a personal experience, whereas reporting constitutes asking someone in authority to take official action (4). Although some survivors may disclose to university employees with the expectation that they will take official action—in which case the employee should be required to report it—others may simply be seeking support, information, and/or accommodations (5–7). Other assumptions underlying universal mandatory reporting policies are linked to campus safety strategies that are more aspirational than realitybased. It is assumed that universal mandatory reporting will surface more cases of sexual misconduct that would otherwise go unreported, enabling institutions to identify perpetrators (especially serial perpetrators) and respond promptly and effectively. Mandatory reporting is also assumed to protect and benefit survivors, which conflates the act of reporting sexual misconduct with supporting its targets. There is little evidence to support either assumption (1). In fact, emerging evidence suggests that broad mandatory reporting policies that compel disclosures can discourage survivors from seeking help and disclosing to employees they trust (8–11). Even when reports are made, university conduct processes are only sought out in one of four of these cases, suggesting that compelled disclosures rarely lead to investigations, hearings, or sanctions (12). Moreover, policies that require all university employees to report assume that staff and faculty are not vulnerable to the sexual harassment that pervades the academic workplace, a reality that shapes employees’ willingness to report