To All Members of the Campus Community:

Preventing sexual and gender-based misconduct is the responsibility of all of us at the University of Michigan.

Across the state and nation, and in our own community, we hear heartbreaking accounts of survivors who have bravely come forward to share their painful and deeply personal experiences. I commend their efforts to help bring perpetrators to justice, inspire fellow survivors to tell their stories, and bring about positive change that will prevent future occurrences of these awful and wholly unacceptable behaviors.

In our community, we must remain vigilant while always looking for ways to make us a safer and more supportive university. These are issues we have been working on for many years at U-M – and I am committed to ensuring that we continuously strive to do better.

As part of our commitment to transparency and as a reminder to everyone at U-M, I want to share our annual report on student sexual misconduct issued by our Office for Institutional Equity (OIE), as well as resources within our community to report or seek assistance in response to sexual misconduct.

The report provides outcomes of all investigations carried out by OIE under the direction of the university’s Title IX coordinator. It is the first report since U-M adopted a new policy and set of procedures on Student Sexual & Gender-Based Misconduct & Other Forms of Interpersonal Violence.

Under our new policy and procedures, intimate partner violence, gender-based harassment, stalking, and violation of interim measures (e.g., violating no contact directives or other measures that are implemented during an OIE investigation) are now types of prohibited conduct that OIE investigates.  As a result, the annual report explicitly tracks and provides data on these types of behaviors. You can read more about the report in The University Record.

We also do a large amount of work to prevent sexual misconduct at U-M. Recent heightened attention on sexual harassment and misconduct is a difficult reminder that these types of programs are essential for all of us. I encourage everyone to engage in our programs and to please report any incidents that occur. We do our best to protect those making both known and anonymous reports, and both state and federal whistleblower laws prevent retaliation against those reporting inappropriate behavior by others.

Each member of the University of Michigan community can help us live up to our values by taking action to report incidents, learn about prevention, and support others.

Reporting an incident:

• Office for Institutional Equity: 734-763-0235
• U-M Police Department: 911 or 734-763-1131
• Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center (SAPAC) 734-764-7771 or the 24/7 Crisis Line at 734-936-3333 for confidential reporting and services. SAPAC’s Community Matters resource guide is available online, as well.
• Information on potential criminal activity also may be reported anonymously by calling the university’s Anonymous Tip Line at 800-863-1355.
• University community members who believe they have witnessed financial, regulatory, NCAA, or patient safety wrongdoing in the course of their daily activities at the university also can report the situation confidentially or anonymously through the university’s compliance website.
• Michigan Medicine patients can call Patient Relations and Clinical Risk at 877-285-7788.

Prevention and training:

Our Office of Student Life provides training for new incoming undergraduate students in five separate programs that deal with sexual misconduct, alcohol harm, and bystander intervention, and all new students receive online training. All students may also contact SAPAC for support, education and prevention resources, or to get involved.

For faculty and staff, OIE offers education and training to foster and maintain a welcoming, supportive, inclusive, and diverse working and learning environment. This includes the online Haven Training Program for faculty and staff.  Faculty and staff may also contact SAPAC for support or to get involved.

You may also wish to review the Annual Security Report & Fire Safety Report from our Department of Public Safety and Security. It contains helpful information about safety and security on our campus.

I hope you will join us in our continued work to develop a culture where all students, faculty, staff, patients, and visitors feel personally safe as well as empowered to report suspected episodes of misconduct to their supervisors, OIE, U-M Police or anonymously via one of our hotlines.  Thank you.

Sincerely,

Mark Schlissel
President