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SIU President Glenn Poshard said Monday he hopes recommended changes to the university's sexual harassment policy would be ready for Board of Trustees approval by Nov. 1.
Recommended policy changes, which stem from a 2006 report to review the way the university handles sexual harassment allegations, will be discussed by the board in closed session Wednesday and analyzed by campus constituency groups in the coming weeks, Poshard said.
The policy has been the subject of criticism in the past months after two lawsuits were filed against the university. Both lawsuits concern professors who were accused of sexual harassment, and one argues the university failed to follow due process in the investigation of the allegations.
Poshard said the university has tried to balance two sides of a very sensitive issue - the safety of those making claims of sexual harassment and the rights of those accused.
"It's really a difficult thing," Poshard said. "I think the university's position all along has been if you err, you err on the side of the victims, or I should say alleged victims, because at this point in time everything is alleged. But we followed protocol."
That protocol has been called unconstitutional by Leonard Gross, an SIU law professor and chairman of the Southern Illinois Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Changes to the policy that were suggested in 2006 would have made the process more fair, former Faculty Association President Marvin Zeman has said. If the changes had been enacted in a timely manner, the university could have avoided the lawsuits regarding the two professors, he said.
A decision about those suggestions - which include improved due process and more oversight of investigations into sexual harassment claims -will fall to campus constituency groups after their leaders are briefed on potential changes Sept. 17.
Poshard said he could not discuss specifics until those leaders are briefed. He said he wouldn't describe the changes as substantial.
The university has gone through four chancellors since the changes were suggested in April 2006.
Poshard said these repeated periods of transition could have stalled the changes.
"I'm not saying it didn't. I don't know," he said. "I'm not placing blame on anybody's doorstep. We had a policy and the rules of the policy were followed. Whether or not an expedited updating of the policy would have made any difference in the outcome of this, I don't know at this point."
Interim Chancellor Sam Goldman, who has said the policy review took too long, said Monday the key to reviewing the changes is to get it right.
Sexual harassment is a sensitive issue, Goldman said, and the review process needs to give everyone who wants to be involved in the discussion a chance to participate. Goldman said he was not aware of a Nov. 1 goal for board approval.
"We'll try to move it in the way that the process moves it. If a group is held up for a while, we're not going to shove it on them," Goldman said.
Any policy changes should also be reviewed by scholars and experts who have studied issues of sexual harassment in the past, said Faculty Senate President Peggy Stockdale.
Stockdale, a psychology professor who has researched issues pertaining to sexual harassment since the early 1990s, said she suggested this to Goldman last week.
"First have a group that has some expertise on it other than the lawyers who drafted it, to review it so (Goldman) can get informed comment on it before he distributes it widely," Stockdale said. "Otherwise, he might not be able to tell the difference between somebody with just a personal opinion and an opinion that is informed from an expert position."
Stockdale said the discussion of sexual harassment should be dispassionate, and should not be fitted around specific cases the university is facing.
"We do have a policy in place and we do have procedures in place. They've been working fairly well," Stockdale said. "You can point to specific problems, and that's going to be true anywhere. I don't think we're in a dire rush to get this new one approved."
Sean McGahan can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 254 or mcgahan@siu.edu.
