Editorial:

System for tracking sexual harassment complaints flawed

Published March 19, 2010

The way to report sexual harassment at MU is far too confusing. The university does not have a single database to record sexual harassment.

Actually, there are four: one for complaints lodged against students, one for university faculty members, one for clinical or hospital staff and one for extended staff members. Although all those systems could be crosschecked, there is no guarantee that is happening.

The MU Equity Office seems more concerned with dealing with the problem than recording it.

There's a potential problem in the chance for overlap. Perhaps a teaching assistant is also a graduate student. Where does one file the complaint? Would it be filed under the university staff or student database? What about clinical staff who also teach classes? Should the complaint be filed under clinical or university staff?

Tracking complaints with four separate systems is overly complex. If gray areas are recorded under either possible area, there's a chance neither would be crosschecked, meaning someone could be receiving multiple complaints and nobody would know.

Other schools have single systems for tracking sexual harassment complaints. It doesn't seem difficult to streamline the current system to include one database for filing.

A simpler system would have fewer flaws, less potential for mistakes, and it would be more user-friendly for complainants.

Sexual harassment claims aren't a problem that should be taken lightly, nor should MU wait for a problem to bring the flawed system to light. Fix it before a serious issue forces MU to learn the hard way.