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Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. In 2011, the Department of Education under President Obama issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) advising schools of their obligation to protect Title IX rights by more effectively responding to campus sexual assault. Many observers hoped that this would promote gender equity. Yet it also generated a backlash, as critics charged schools with stripping accused students of due process rights in campus adjudication procedures. We conducted content analysis of the 2016-17 sexual misconduct policies of 381 American colleges and universities to analyze how well adjudication procedures created in response to the DCL attended to both gender equity and due process requirements. The state of adjudication at this pivotal moment provides an empirical baseline from which to assess equity in university sexual misconduct procedures. We found that most school procedures for investigating and adjudicating complaints of sexual misconduct included "hybrid" models that incorporated due process protections while acknowledging (but often not fully meeting) Title IX obligations. To our knowledge, this is the only large-scale national study of how schools have reconciled Title IX and due process rights in adjudication procedures.

Campus sexual misconduct policies (SMPs) outline prohibited conduct. We sought to document the range of terms used to refer to forms of nonconsensual sexual contact in SMPs and to analyze the content of definitions provided for the term "sexual assault." We coded the 2016-2017 SMPs from a sample of 381 U.S. schools. We identified 125 unique terms and documented both a terminological and conceptual morass around sexual assault. Policy language may have implications for students' and administrators' evaluation of experiences and reports of sexual assault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite gains in baccalaureate and master's degree attainment, women continue to earn lower shares of doctor of philosophy degrees (PhDs) in many fields, a pattern that is often pronounced in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This article uses comparative case study to understand organizational trajectories toward gender parity achieved in two Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) PhD programs--chemistry and civil engineering--in which women have earned significantly higher shares of PhDs than is typical in their fields. Our analysis uncovered a surprising pattern of progress toward parity occurring as an unintended consequence of other changes. Structural reforms implemented to maintain these departments' relevance and stature in changing disciplinary fields had ripple effects that included reducing their gender enrollment gaps in graduate programs. Their trajectories differed, however, and comparing them affirmed the potential of mindful organizational learning as a means of achieving sustainable progress toward equity.

The purpose of this article is to advance an understanding of how diversity experiences can potentially foster moral development among college students. An overview of the research linking diversity experiences to moral development is discussed, followed by a presentation of a conceptual framework that demonstrates the nuances and challenges in optimizing the moral benefits derived from diversity encounters.

Background/Context: Education scholars have examined how state policy and informal practice can widen or reproduce racial and gender inequalities in graduate education. Just one empirical study, which focused on psychology programs, has identified organizational practice that supports recruitment and retention of graduate students of color. Focus of study: To identify organizational conditions and specific activities that support diversity in STEM graduate programs, the authors conducted a yearlong case study of a physics program that, for the last decade, has trained about 10% of the Black Ph.D.'s in physics, nationally. They identified and described concrete efforts to enhance access and inclusion, and sought to understand how this program distinguished itself from a traditional physics department. Participants: Study participants consisted of 16 faculty, administrators, administrative staff, and students affiliated with the Applied Physics program at the University of Michigan. Research Design: Data for this qualitative case study was collected through eighteen interviews, two student focus groups, observations of everyday life and special events in the program, and a large amount of documentary data. Guided by the constant comparative method, the analysis assessed convergence and divergence across types of data and across faculty, administrator, staff, and student perspectives. Major findings represent four areas of consensus across participant roles. Findings/Results: Four themes explain how Applied Physics has increased access to and inclusion in a field known for its inequality. The program institutionalized a flexible, interdisciplinary intellectual paradigm; they reconceptualized their vision of the ideal student and reformed admissions accordingly; they empowered administrative staff to serve as cultural translators across racial and faculty-student boundaries; and they worked to create a family-like climate that gave them a competitive advantage over other physics programs. Conclusions/Recommendations: We interpret the findings from the perspective of Charles Tilly's boundary change mechanisms, and conclude that the common thread among the four themes was the program's willingness to erase, relocate, and/or deactivate boundaries that had implicitly created barriers to access and inclusion for underrepresented students. The paper recommends specific steps that graduate programs can take to analyze the symbolic boundaries operating in their own programs, and invites scholars to utilize the boundaries perspective in future research on educational inequality.