Sexual Discrimination and Harassment in Particular

Every member of the Gould School of Law community has an important stake in fostering a safe, supportive, and welcoming environment for learning and teaching. The community does not tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind, including sexual discrimination, harassment, and violence. Every member of the community is strongly encouraged to help prevent sexually inappropriate conduct by practicing "bystander intervention," which means speaking up when you see possible inappropriate sexual conduct taking place.

Reporting Options

If you are aware of sexually inappropriate conduct and you are a Responsible Employee, you must report the conduct in accordance with the requirements set out here. If you have experienced or are aware of sexually inappropriate conduct and you are not a Responsible Employee, we encourage you to report it immediately to the contacts listed below, who can inform you of your rights and additional resources. You may also report instances of misconduct to local law enforcement (LAPD), the USC Department of Public Safety (DPS), or USC's Title IX Office.

Contacts at Gould

You may contact the following individuals at Gould if you have been affected by or have questions about sexual misconduct:

• Kyle Jones, kwjones@law.usc.edu (JD students)
• Misa Shimotsu-Kim, mshimots@law.usc.edu (non-JD students)
• Malissa Barnwell-Scott, mbarnwell@law.usc.edu (JD students)

Reporting Process

The flow chart below shows generally what happens after a report has been made to the appropriate people at the law school as well as to USC's Title IX office (titleix@usc.edu; 213-740-5086):

After initiating an investigation, the Title IX Office makes every effort to complete the investigation within 60 calendar days. However, circumstances that might require a longer period include a parallel law enforcement investigation, unavailable witnesses, university breaks or vacations, unusual complexity of an investigation, or delays caused by parties other than the university. The Title IX Office will notify the parties in writing if the Office anticipates it will not complete its investigation within 60 days.

Gould Responsibilities

Because USC policy requires the Title IX Office to conduct all investigations into sexual discrimination, harassment, and violence, Gould has no authority either to conduct its own investigation or to impose disciplinary sanctions. Only the Title IX Office may take disciplinary action, and it may do so only after completing an investigation.

Gould does have the responsibility, however, to support all involved parties until an investigation is complete. Your Gould contacts will stay in touch with you throughout the Title IX process to be sure you have access to all the resources Gould can reasonably provide and to be sure we answer your questions to the best of our ability.

A federal law, the Family Education Rights Protection Act (FERPA), strictly limits the information the Title IX Office can share with the law school about an investigation or about any disciplinary sanctions.

For More Information

We encourage you to read more about the Title IX Office's policies and procedures, available at https://policy.usc.edu/student/student-misconduct/. If you have additional questions, you may reach out to the Title IX Office directly at titleix@usc.edu.

Additional resources can also be found on our sexual discrimination and harassment resources page as well as the Title IX Office's resources page.

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