By Ashleigh Sherman
aesherma@indiana.edu | @aesherma
The Board of Trustees addressed discrimination, liability and a new degree at Thursday’s meeting.
The board approved the IU Non-Discrimination/Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Policy during the first trustee meeting of the academic year, which is taking place on Indiana University-Purdue University's campus.
"The trustees strongly reaffirmed their commitment to prohibit all forms of discrimination,” said Jacqueline Simmons, IU vice president and general counsel.
The policy prohibits discrimination based on characteristics such as age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or veteran status, Simmons said.
The policy applies to the hiring and promoting of all IU employees including administrators, faculty, staff, and temporary employees, and the recruitment and admittance of all IU students, Simmons said.
Though the policy has been in effect since 1969, the trustees approved an updated version of the policy, which includes a reference Title IX.
“Title IX prohibits sexual harassment or discrimination on the basis of gender or sex in any educational institution that receives government funding,” Simmons said. “Title IX is such a big issue right now.”
The trustees also approved the new University-Related Legal Entities Policy.
The policy lays out a framework for establishing and monitoring University-related legal entities, entities not legally considered to be affiliated with the University, but commonly viewed to be affiliated with the University, Simmons said.
“We have a number of entities around the University that people think of as being Indiana University,” Simmons said. “And so, because of their name or because of their relationship to the University, they may have been started by a professor or an employee or a student at Indiana University, people think of them as being Indiana University.“
Simmons said that as the number of requests for University-related legal entities has grown over the past year the University’s concern over liability for these University-related legal entities has also grown.
“So what we decided to do was make it more clear when we would allow such entities to be established and what the criteria would be and who would actually make decisions, so that we can be consistent across the board,” Simmons said.
The policy defines a university-related legal entity as any organization with a legal existence separate from the University that is, nevertheless, likely to be viewed as part of the University or likely to viewed as affiliated with the University, Simmons said.
Those organizations that meet this definition must receive sponsorship from a University unit and a letter of support from the head of that unit, before sending a detailed proposal to be approved by the Office of the Vice President and General Counsel, the Office of the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, the Office of the President and the Board of Trustees.
“We needed to make sure that (the organizations) were all going through the same decision-making process to decide whether they were legitimate or not,” Simmons said.
The trustees also approved a new degree for IU South Bend: a Master of Science in Education in Educational Leadership.
