USU Office of Equity Releases Annual Report

Utah State University’s Office of Equity has released its annual report outlining sexual misconduct and discrimination prevention and response efforts from August 2021 to July 2022.

The Office of Equity provides education, reporting options, supportive measures and a neutral administrative grievance process to address and respond to sexual misconduct and discrimination incidents at the university. The office also has a strong focus on training, with most USU students and employees required to complete at least one educational session annually.

“This is the second year that we have released the Office of Equity annual report,” said Matt Pinner, Office of Equity executive director. “This annual communication is critical in our effort to provide aggregate data and transparency to the campus community.”

“The information in this report also helps us guide our response to sexual misconduct as a university,” Pinner said. “Not only does the data help us identify problem areas, it also helps us set staffing levels to provide an appropriate level of service to the campus community.”

The annual report includes the number and types of incident reports to the Office of Equity and the number of resulting cases, a breakdown of allegations, and information about student and employee training efforts.

There were 1,137 incident reports concerning allegations of sexual misconduct or discrimination submitted to the Office of Equity from August 2021 to July 2022 — nearly double the number from the same time period a year ago. After accounting for multiple reports on some incidents, there were 648 unique cases created. This included:

• 245 Title IX cases (incidents that occurred in an employment or education program or activity, including incidents occurring on campus)
• 211 non-Title IX sexual misconduct cases
• 127 discrimination cases
• 65 other cases

“The number of cases is significantly lower than the number of reports because there are often multiple reports filed about the same incident,” Pinner said. “I think that this is a positive development that shows a shift to more of a reporting culture at the university.”

The increase in reporting numbers also aligns with results from USU’s student sexual misconduct survey conducted in April 2021, which showed that while the incidence of sexual misconduct has stayed the same since the first survey in 2017, trust in the university’s process has increased each year.

In the 2021 survey, nearly 75% of student respondents said they would be comfortable reporting sexual misconduct to USU's Title IX Coordinator, and 88% agreed that USU officials handle concerning incidents in a fair and responsible manner — a 27% increase since the previous survey in 2019.

The complete 2021-22 Office of Equity annual report is available online.