Title IX and Yellow Zone Behavior: An Introduction to the Special Issue

• Date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Tara N. Richards,Callie Marie Rennison
• Published date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/15570851221088357
• Subject Matter: Editorial

Editorial

Feminist Criminology

2022, Vol. 17(3) 315–321

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/15570851221088357

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Title IX and Yellow Zone

Behavior: An Introduction to

the Special Issue

Tara N. Richards

1

and Callie Marie Rennison

2

Robust research focuses on the prevalence and consequences of gender-based violence

(i.e., sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and

stalking; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020) at institutions of higher

education (IHEs) or sexual misconduct in university speak. More recently, scholars

have turned their attention to examining the role of Title IX in addressing sexual

misconduct and how IHEs’policies and practices under Title IX do or do not serve

complainants (i.e., alleged victims), respondents (i.e., alleged perpetrators), and the

overall campus community.

At IHEs, when an alleged incident of sexual misconduct is reported to a Title IX

coordinator a common expectation is that (1) the report will result in a formal complaint

of a policy violation and (2) be investigated by the Title IX coordinator; (3) that a

hearing panel will then determine whether the respondent or respondents violated the

IHE’s policy as outlined in the formal complaint, and (4) if a policy violation is found,

sanctions will be levied against the responsible party or parties. In practice, however,

most reported incidents of sexual misconduct do not result in a formal Title IX

complaint and investigation, and many investigated incidents do not result in a f‌inding

of a policy violation or sanction (Rennison, 2018;Richards, 2019;Richards et al.,

2021). For example, in 2018–2019, across 209 institutions of higher education in New

York,only 769 (20%) of the 3829 incidents reported to a Title IX coordinator resulted in

a formal complaint and investigation and 412 investigated cases resulted in a policy

violation and sanction (Richards et al., 2021). This signif‌icant attrition of reported

1

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

2

School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA

Corresponding Author:

Tara N. Richards, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska, Omaha, 6001 Dodge

Street, 218 CPACS, Omaha, NE 68182-0149, USA.

Email: tararichards@unomaha.edu