Embedded Files
After transitioning to new universities, two Title IX coordinators discuss their unique challenges.
by Cecilia Sarantopoulos
Engrossed in her work, Ebony Manning doesn’t immediately notice me standing by her office’s ajar door in time for our 3:00 PM meeting. A warm office heralds her even warmer presence, as she promptly looks up and smiles. “Come in!”
Manning has been Brown’s Title IX coordinator since February 2022. She previously served as the Title IX coordinator at Connecticut College, where she stayed for four years. Manning received her Master of Laws (LLM) from St. John’s University and her J.D. from the Texas Southern University – Thurgood Marshall School of Law.
Title IX was enacted in 1972 as part of the Education Amendments Act. The law prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funding. Originally intended to address gender discrimination in education in athletics, Title IX has since expanded to include protection against sexual assault, harassment, and violence on college campuses.
Universities’ Title IX coordinators ensure the institutions comply with Title IX regulations by coordinating the institution’s response to sex discrimination reports, including sexual harassment and assault. They oversee institution’s proper remedial action to address such reports and work to prevent discrimination and promote a safe and inclusive environment for students and employees.
As busy as Manning is, she put everything aside for the hour we spent talking about her experience as Brown’s Title IX coordinator. “It wasn’t a hard transition, it was just different,” Manning said about her transition from Connecticut College to Brown last February.
Transitioning from one university to another as a Title IX coordinator can be challenging. The new institution may have different policies and procedures around addressing reports of sex discrimination, and coordinators have to familiarize themselves with the new institution’s Title IX program, including the reporting process, investigation procedures, and available resources.
When Manning became a part of the Brown community as its new Title IX coordinator, she didn’t have time to acclimate to the new environment, let alone savor the beginning of a new chapter. “You must understand,” she says, “that when a new Title IX coordinator enters a new [academic] space, there’s usually no grace period. You hit the ground running.”
Title IX coordinators also adjust to a student body’s size and culture. A private liberal arts college, Connecticut College has only about 1,900 students. “What I believed would be the hardest thing to get used to before coming to Brown was the size difference,” said Manning. With 9,000 students, Brown’s student body is almost five times larger than Connecticut College’s.
Having to manage Brown’s Title IX office on her own, Manning became responsible for many more students than she ever had been. Adjusting to the new numbers “was exciting but also intimidating,” she says.
Coordinators must also establish relationships with key stakeholders, including administrators, campus law enforcement, and community partners to ensure a coordinated and effective response to reports of sex discrimination.
“For me, this [2022-2023 school] year has been all about getting to know and partner with different campus partners and understanding the nuances that make Brown, Brown,” says Manning. She works closely with mandatory reporters and internal investigators on the Brown campus. “They’re my eyes and ears out in the different spaces,” she says.
Manning says that, while the Title IX office seems small, “ there are so many people doing such important work outside of the office.” She cooperates with other Brown offices and staff—such as Brown’s deputy Title IX coordinators— to maximize Title IX’s efficiency and coverage.
Although they’re not housed within the Title IX gender and equity office, the deputy coordinators are Manning’s partners in this work—“a team of people woven throughout the fabric of Brown.”
No matter how smooth a Title IX coordinator’s transition is, it can be intimidating for survivors to reach out to an unfamiliar office.
Manny says the office did the best it could to accommodate students during its transition but that survivors felt discouraged to seek help during this time.
Transitioning or vacant leadership “can throw off someone,” Manning says. “I think people who experienced Title IX at Brown during its transition now look at it and think: ‘I’m not sure about the office.’ But getting out there and saying, ‘I’m here,’ counts,” she says. Manning says she’s committed to showing up for students. “I’m here to offer my support and services to anyone who might need them.”
Manning also highlighted neutrality as one of the office’s pledges. “This is an impartial, neutral, unbiased, office,” she said. “I don’t pick a side. I’m here to support both parties.”
Down College Hill, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) also recently onboarded a new Title IX Coordinator.
Sana Amini started her position in April 2023. She had attended Smith College and later received her J.D. from the UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law. Amini has been involved with various campuses’ Title IX offices, including the University of California - Santa Cruz, Lesley University, and Brown University, where she still works as an Institutional Equity Investigator.
Like Amini, there are students who also work at Brown and at RISD. Through the five-year Brown|RISD Dual Degree Program, students can develop and integrate diverse spheres of academic and artistic interests after being accepted to both institutions.
Students must choose both a major at Brown and a major at RISD and can receive a Bachelor of Arts (A. B) degree or a Bachelor of Science (Sc.B.) from Brown and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.FA.) degree from RISD.
“Strangely enough, I’m only in my first week as Title IX Coordinator at RISD,” Amini replied to my first email in early April.
A week later, Amini appears on my screen, her smiling face filling the frame. Despite her recent appointment, Amini appears calm and excited to embark on a new chapter.
“Honestly, [transitioning from Brown to RISD] has been wild,” she says. “I’m only three blocks away yet it’s very very different.”
Academically, RISD and Brown offer different but complementary strengths. While Brown offers comprehensive majors in the humanities and social, physical, and life sciences, RISD offers extensive, specialized study in all areas spanning art and design.
“RISD is a different environment because it’s like Lesley, they're both campuses that are mostly Studio Practice,” says Amini. At Brown, Amini says that it would be easier to get students' attention about a Title IX related issue during their lunch break.
At RISD, lunch breaks are much shorter, if at all, making it harder for Title IX staff to spread a message outside from Title IX organized events. “People are in class 12,13 hours a day,” says Amini. A junior at RISD commented at a UNIGO RISD review page that “everyone I know is stressed. You don’t get a break at this school. Weekends exist in name only.”
Brown and RISD campus culture differences extend beyond academics and schedules. “People who come to RISD are so different from those who go to an Ivy League or a liberal arts college,” says Amini. At RISD, art culture is a priority. In a poll conducted by UNIGO, 93% of RISD’s student body believes that it’s “part of a very artistic group.”
“Almost all students at RISD know what they want to specialize in and spend their years at RISD perfecting their craft,” Amini says. “The typical liberal arts college student doesn’t necessarily know [what they want to specialize in] and has a very different college experience.”
Although it’s too early for Amini to tell how the nature of RISD’s student body reflects on its interactions with RISD’s Title IX office, she can already tell that on both Brown and RISD’s campuses, students are generally “pretty good advocates for themselves, which is not the case on all college campuses.”
“Not everything [regarding Title IX] has been good,” says Amini. An Institutional Equity Investigator at Brown, Amini believes that “Title IX is this thing that is inconsistent and is always changing because it has not been settled and it is [politically] yanked all around.” Title IX’s political affiliations and other students’ negative experiences with the office are factors that may contribute to “student distrusting” Title IX, she says.
“There was a time when schools weren’t using trauma-informed techniques within their Title IX offices,” says Amini. “If you look back when I was in college, informed trauma care wasn’t really formulated.”
Amini believes that now, Title IX offices take the responsibility of training Title IX personnel on trauma informed techniques seriously. One of these techniques includes knowing how to identify and understand survivors’ triggers.
An aspect of Title IX that Amini regularly considers if a case’s outcome will ever be good enough. “Title IX is a process that serves to provide some sort of outcome. But it’s one in which nobody will be pleased with what that outcome is. It’s never going to be what somebody was seeking,” she says.
Knowing that survivors might never “be satisfied” with the outcome of a case report is an “inherently unsatisfying” aspect of Amani’s work, she says. “Periodically, [knowing that survivors may not ever be pleased with the outcome] makes me question why Title IX prioritizes balance and neutrality when it’s often not helpful for survivors,” she says.
Looking forward to how she hopes to shape RISD’s Title IX office, Amini looks to her past. “I was really lucky to have learned the Title IX system in the University of California – Santa Cruz because it uses a trauma informed approach from the investigation to pretty much every step of the way,” she says. “I learned from people who really infused that knowledge into every step of the process.”
For Amini, there is a lot of room in the most recent Title IX regulations for more supportive guidelines. “I’m a big fan of letting people know what their rights are and reminding them every step of the way,” she says. Amini is an advocate of assuring respondents and survivors that she is there to clarify Title IX guidelines. “Those involved in the investigation are dealing with their own trauma, and it is my job to explain the law to them in a helpful way,” she says.
Amini hopes to make RISD’s Title IX office a place where students can come to “not only when things are bad, but also whenever they want to learn more about the office by reaching out with questions,” she says. Creating a dialogue between RISD’s student body and the Title IX administration outside of times of crisis is on Amini’s to-do list. “I’m still trying to get the lay of the land,” she says.
Amini and Manning are committed to working to improve the Title IX landscape in Brown and RISD. Both coordinators acknowledge their institutions’ limitations and are willing to tackle them.
To make a difference as coordinators, they will prioritize creating relationships with students and establishing their offices as a trusted resource not only during times of distress but as sources of education, guidance, and feedback throughout the entirety of students’ college years.
Cecilia Sarantopoulos is a senior studying Comparative Literature and Theatre Arts.
Commentary
To capture an authentic account of Ebony Manning and Sana Amini's experiences, I carefully crafted interview questions that delved into their personal journeys, obstacles, and strategies to navigate unfamiliar territories. Conducting the interviews involved active listening and maintaining a respectful and empathetic approach to allow the coordinators to share their stories openly and honestly. Establishing trust and rapport proved challenging, given the coordinators' cautiousness due to the sensitive nature of their work. By emphasizing the importance of their insights and my commitment to objective reporting, I created a sense of ease in our interviews. Accessing Title IX coordinators was also a hurdle due to their busy schedules and the privacy concerns surrounding the cases they handle. The candid interviews with the coordinators were impactful in humanizing their roles and revealing the emotional toll of transitioning to a new universities.
Source List
https://www.brown.edu/academics/brown-risd-dual-degree/about
https://www.unigo.com/colleges/rhode-island-school-of-design
In-person interview with Ebony Manning, 3/3
Zoom interview with Sana Amini, 4/17
Photo by Rhode Island School of Design
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