University of Missouri releases annual Title IX report

More people at the University of Missouri filed reports alleging discrimination last academic school year than in years past, according to the school’s 2017-18 Title IX Report.

The report said 750 discrimination reports were filed last school year, up from 693 in the 2016-17 school year and 715 reports in the year before that.

The University of Missouri released its 2016-17 and 2017-18 Title IX reports on Wednesday.

Allegations made against faculty and staff members went up from 195 in 2016-17 to 279 in 2017-18. Andy Hayes, the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Civil Rights and Title IX, said the university works to prevent this from happening.

“We will provide sessions within our division of IDE – Inclusion, Diversity and Equity – that people can voluntarily attend,” Hayes said.

In a news release, the university said it found the biggest drops in reports of discrimination based on national origin and race.

Sex and gender discrimination has continued to be the most reported type of violation over the past three years. This year, the number of sex and gender discrimination reports grew from 519 to 559, a 6.4 percent increase.

Race discrimination reports have continued to decrease over the past three school years. In the 2015-16 academic school year, 19 percent of allegations were based on race discrimination. In 2016-17, the allegations dropped to 15.7 percent. In 2017-18, the allegations dropped to 13.2 percent.

There was also a drop in national origin discrimination from 2016-17 to 2017-18 from 6.2 percent to 3.2 percent. However the 2017-18 total of national origin discrimination incident reports is still higher than the original number of reports in 2015-16.

Title IX is a federal law that prohibits discrimination at public institutions of higher education.

Check back for more on this developing story.