When the IU Student Association reached out to the Office of Student Ethics last fall, it received no response from its director, IUSA Chief of Staff Sara Zaheer said.
IUSA was working to make expansions in the Indiana Lifeline Law, which provides immunities for certain alcohol-related offenses, on a legislative level when they tried to reach out to then-Office of Student Ethics Director Jason Casares.
Zaheer said while much of the office was responsive to their requests, Casares was not, which prevented IUSA from moving forward in its advocacy.
“If we’re going to represent our campus somewhere else as students, it would be nice to be informed,” Zaheer said. “And as much as we try to be informed, it’s hard when administration doesn’t respond to requests for more information about how these processes work.”
Following Casares’ resignation last month, representatives of IU student organizations are sharing their recent experiences with the Office of Student Ethics.
While many have said they feel the office lacks transparency, others said they believe the entire office cannot be to blame.
Sophomore Karis Neufeld, president of RAISE, Raising Awareness of Interactions and Sexual Encounters, said the allegations raised against Casares were a shock.
Neufeld said she had collaborated with other members of the Office of Student Ethics in the past to work toward the organization’s goals of preventing sexual assault, supporting survivors and promoting a sex-positive environment.
The mutual understanding built with the office has been broken, Neufeld said.
“We don’t really know if we can trust the administration again,” Neufeld said. “Survivors aren’t going to feel like they can report, and I don’t even know if they should anymore.”
Eighteen cases Casares sat on sexual assault hearing boards for are being reviewed by Julia Lamber, an emerita faculty member of the IU Maurer School of Law.
“There has been a little bit of frustration because it’s just cases from this year,” Neufeld said. “There’s some students who are asking, ‘Why aren’t they looking back farther? He oversaw cases that happened before that.’”
Dean of Students Harold “Pete” Goldsmith said these 18 cases from this school year are being reviewed because they overlap with the timing of the allegations.
Daniel Niersbach, deputy treasurer of IUSA and a brother at Sigma Phi Epsilon, said his fraternity saw a lack of response from the Office of Student Ethics when Sig Ep was under a Title IX investigation.
He said executive members of the fraternity emailed the office for weekly updates on the investigation and members in the office refused to meet with the brothers in person.
“We had every intention to help with the investigation,” Niersbach said. “When there’s a victim of something like that on our campus, the priority isn’t like, ‘Better change the facts and hunker down so we don’t get in trouble.’ It’s more about, like, we wanted justice for that individual because that comes first in those scenarios.”
Niersbach said the office’s investigation lasted nearly an entire semester and the office did little to explain how or why investigations sometimes last longer than the typical 60-day process outlined on the Office of Student Ethics’ website.
“During that period, I wish they would have better explained this going further,” Nierbach said.
However, he added following Casares’ resignation, the University could not be held responsible for the actions of an individual.
“I think it’s important to know that it’s not the University’s fault,” Nierbach said. “It’s not that office’s fault. The allegations are against an individual that doesn’t represent the University or that ethics process.”
Shortly after Casares’ resignation, Goldsmith apologized for a lack of trust in the Office of Student Ethics felt among students.
“I’m sorry,” Goldsmith said. “I certainly understand their concerns. I think with Mr. Casares’ resignation we hope to restore whatever trust has been eroded, and we’ll do everything that we can to do that.”
Associate director Libby Spotts has been named interim director of the Office of Student Ethics while a committee can conduct what is likely to be a national search for Casares’ permanent replacement, Goldsmith said.
Neufeld said going forward, increased student involvement would be needed to help rebuild the trust that has been lost.
“I’d like to see more of that transparency and more student engagement and involvement in that process because I definitely think there’s a student perspective that needs to be heard,” Neufeld said.
