Western Michigan University’s Board of Trustees has approved a new policy designed to encourage students and staff to report cases of sexual misconduct.
The university said in a news release that trustees approved changes Wednesday. They were put in place on an interim basis on January, and the policy was refined and presented to the board after comments from campus community members.
The new policy designates the school’s Office of Institutional Equity to handle reports of sexual misconduct and investigations into those reports. The university says it’s replacing a hearing panel approach used earlier for student reports with an investigative model used by trained personnel.
Western Michigan says work leading to the new policy began before investigations into Title IX violations at schools nationwide. (AP)