Under state law and UT Southwestern policy, Responsible Employees must report to the Title IX Coordinator or Deputy Title IX Coordinator all information concerning any incident the employee reasonably believes constitutes sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, or stalking committed by or against a student, resident, or employee.

Responsible Employee is defined as all UT Southwestern employees including all officials, administrators, faculty, staff, academic advisors, mentors, with the exception of Confidential Employees, or police officers when a victim uses a pseudonym form under the Code of Criminal Procedure for incidents of sexual assault, stalking, family violence, and human trafficking.

Responsible Employees must immediately report all known information concerning the incident to the Title IX Coordinator or a Deputy Coordinator, and must include whether a complainant has expressed a desire for confidentiality in reporting the incident.

No. You always have the option to request a dismissal of the investigation or be uninvolved in the investigation process, which means you don’t have to participate in the investigation. The Title IX Coordinator will review the dismissal request and determine if the investigation should be dismissed. If the investigation is not dismissed, the Complainant always has the right to be uninvolved during the investigation process. Without the participation of the Complainant, the university may not have enough information to move forward in the investigation or adjudication process. Factors that may result in not dismissing the investigation include, but are not limited to:

1. The seriousness of the alleged conduct;
2. Whether the university has received other reports of a Title IX incident committed by the alleged Respondent(s);
3. Whether the alleged incident poses a risk of harm to others.

Don’t try to discern in which category the incident may be classified. Report any information that was shared with you with the Title IX Coordinator and they will determine whether the information qualifies.

If you are a Responsible Employee, then you should inform this person that you are required to report all known information to the Division of Title IX.

Such reports must be filed with the institution's Title IX Coordinator or Deputy Title IX Coordinator. You can submit this report here.

No. The law only requires employees to report and it specifically excludes a student enrolled at the institution. However, our current guidelines about who is a Mandatory Reporter include some students, such as resident assistants.

SB 212 has strong penalties for not complying with the law. Employees failing to report incidents of sexual assault can be charged with a Class B Misdemeanor and terminated. If the person intentionally tries to cover up the incident, they could also face a Class A misdemeanor charge. Furthermore, the university itself could also face a disciplinary action as a failure to comply with the bill’s requirements and could incur as much as a $2 million penalty.

There are two processes used to determine penalties: the criminal process and an administrative process. In both cases, the penalties under SB 212 took effect on January 1, 2020.

Yes. SB 212 has only two exceptions for requiring reports of sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence or stalking. If you are the victim of sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence or stalking, you are not required to report or if the disclosure is made at a “public awareness event” sponsored by the University or a university-affiliated student organization.

Yes. If you report something in good faith or assist in the investigation of a report, you are protected under both SB 212 and UT Southwestern's anti-retaliation policy (ETH-154). A report made in good faith is one where a reasonable person, given the known facts of the incident, would more likely than not conclude that prohibited conduct had occurred. From another view, a report made in bad faith is one that has little regard for the actual facts of an incident and is made with bad intent toward another person.

Retaliation for making a report is strictly prohibited, even if it ends up that you were mistaken in what you thought you saw or heard.