As one of the 55 colleges and universities currently being investigated for the mishandling of sexual harassment complaints, Dartmouth College is on a mission to clear its name and rectify the flaws in its system.
The college held its first ever sexual harassment summit on Monday. Civil rights officials, forensics experts, sexual harassment lawyers, authors and educators were invited to the Hanover campus to discuss sexual violence on campus. The summit will spanned a number of days and was designed to help college officials assess the school’s current practices and generate new ideas to implement.
The summit kicked off with a question and answer period before transitioning into an in-depth analysis of the latest proven methods for preventing and reporting sexual harassment and violence cases. Experts in the field had the chance to weigh in the on the matter. Attorneys explained the current laws. Educators talked about campus safety and protocol concerns.
United States Education Department spokeswomen, Catherine Lhamon, lamented that “the most fundamental mission that a college or university has is to make sure that all students within their campus have the opportunity to learn and to learn in a way that is safe and appropriate.” She goes on to place the blame right on the shoulders of campus officials by saying that “I resist pretty hard that schools don’t have a role in this. They absolutely do.”
A Dartmouth college official, Justing Anderson, emphasizes the college’s commitment to change by saying that the point of the summit was to “really work together and find a solution to this problem that has plagued us for so long.” Resident Advisor, Victoria Nevel, has seen the problem firsthand and says that “it is really nice to see that Dartmouth is taking a stand and getting public about it.”
Regardless of the outcome of the summit, sexual harassment attorneys believe this is a solid step in the right direction and urge any student who has been the victim of harassment to come forward and seek justice. Our lawyers serve clients in and around NYC.
The Derek Smith Law Group, PLLC handles a multitude of cases that involve sexual harassment in Manhattan and the greater New York City area. For further information, please feel free to call us at 212-587-0760 or toll-free at or email at dtslaws@msn.com.
