The following is the text of the president's prepared remarks to the University Senate at its regular meeting.

I’ll begin with a topic that remains at the top of our minds, and rightfully so: the issue of sexual violence and intimidation on our campus. I spoke this morning at the Classified Staff Training and Development Advisory Committee meeting. The theme of their meeting was “Our Commitment to End Violence in Our Community—sexual discrimination, abuse, and harassment.” Their agenda included a number of table discussions about how to support one another when we witness harassment or discrimination, ways to improve the new mandatory online sexual harassment prevention training for faculty and staff, and other ways to create a safer and more respectful campus community.

I was encouraged to see this was the theme they chose for their meeting, and I am glad these conversations are taking place—from the classified staff meeting this morning; to the senate forum here last week; to the discussions going on across campus. We are all talking about this issue, addressing it head on, and collectively working to find solutions. Keeping the discussion front and center—acknowledging the problem, engaging in respectful discourse and bringing our collective expertise to the problem—are critical steps toward enacting the kind of deep cultural change that must take place on our campus.

And there is much to do, even as we make progress. When I arrived here, I was surprised to learn there was no mandatory sexual harassment prevention training program for faculty and staff—working in collaboration with the Faculty Advisory Committee, we began one. We can improve it, and Provost Coltrane is gathering data on that. But it is a start. We also didn’t have an ombudsperson on campus—we’re now fortunate to have Bruce MacAllister here, whom you met last week.

I appreciate the hard work our colleagues in Student Affairs have done in addressing the issue of sexual misconduct prevention and response among students, implementing a multidimensional strategy to address these issues from many different perspectives. And I appreciate their receptiveness to the ideas in the Groves Report, and implementation of the report’s recommendations.

We are making progress with a couple of the immediate measures I announced earlier this month: We are in the process of adding two more staff positions aligned with the recommendations of the White House Task Force to augment our support for survivors: a Sexual Violence Response and Support Services Director to provide confidential support and advocacy to survivors, and an Equal Opportunity Specialist and Title IX Investigator in Affirmative Action. This position will help with an increase in reporting of sexual assault and misconduct we’ve seen recently.

And we are very close to finalizing who will serve on the external review panel I announced with the Vice President for Student Affairs and the Athletic Director. This panel will examine our campus-wide efforts to prevent and respond to sexual violence, misconduct, and intimidation, and review our support services, education efforts, recruiting practices, and recent efforts to improve our code of conduct policies. We’ve received several suggestions from members of the campus community, and I thank you for that. The panel will be in place as soon as we can arrange schedules—we are eager for them to get to work.

We need to discuss things we can do right now, this summer, to support sexual violence prevention efforts and make our campus safer now. I find it immensely encouraging that there are so many individuals and groups who want to do this, who want to help, and are offering their ideas and expertise. I know many of you here are deeply engaged in these efforts and discussions, and I thank you for that.

Today you will also be considering several changes to the student conduct code that we believe will help improve the safety of our campus, including two that were recommended in the Groves Report commissioned by Student Affairs last fall. One would extend the code of conduct jurisdiction off campus; the other would lower the standard of evidence required in such cases. These changes are important, and I’m glad to see them up for consideration today.

We will continue to work over the summer, and keep these conversations and discussions at the fore. They have been difficult, and they will continue to be, but the problem facing us is deep and complex, and will take an extended, collective effort to address. I am fully committed to that effort.

Finally, I want to talk for a moment about the Academic Freedom Policy, which was approved by the Senate last month. I have signed the policy, and have outlined the context for my decision in a memo I am sending to President Kyr, which I trust he will share with you and which will be posted to my website. I also want to provide you with some of that context.

This university has a long and exceptional history of strong protections for academic freedom and freedom of speech. The UO has consistently been on the right side of this issue, and fierce protection of these freedoms is part of our culture. This is something to be proud of.

Currently, academic freedom at this university is protected by an OAR (580-022-005) that covers academic freedom for all of Oregon’s universities. Represented faculty are also protected by Article 5 of the United Academics Collective Bargaining Agreement. And the university has additional policies, including the Community Standards Affirmation and the UO policy on Freedom of Inquiry and Free Speech. Taken together, they provide a very robust set of protections.

When I began working with the Senate about a year ago to draft a policy that would further strengthen these protections, my view was then, and has remained, that we could best accomplish that by including clarifications similar to those recently adopted by several other AAU universities, including the Universities of California and Washington. Like these universities, I favor adding language explicitly recognizing that traditional academic freedom principles extend to speech concerning university policies. This recognition is timely, and ensures that academic freedom at the UO will not be narrowed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006).

As I’ve said, research universities are absolutely dependent on these freedoms. This is why I approached this issue with such care and deliberation, and it is why I am pleased to sign the policy today. I do believe that the University of Oregon has one of the strongest academic freedom policies in the country.

I thank all of you for your time and the work you’ve done on behalf of the university this year, and I wish you all a productive summer.