SU Student Group Complaint Confidentiality

News Staff - Thu Feb 16, 2023

Part of the role of the Student Groups Committee (SGC) is to adjudicate rare confidential complaints, help student groups improve practices and processes in collaboration with the Office of the Dean of Students, and give summarized reports to Students' Council once issues are resolved.

Recently, one of the first of these SGC reports came to Students' Council for a private discussion, and some of the presentation materials were added to the Council public document package. This package was posted to the Council online archive and automatically distributed to the Gateway. The report to Council was a high-level summary of a complaint, how it was resolved, and the changes made as a result. While the report did not name the complainant, it did include sensitive details related to incidents that took place in past years and their impact on the complainant's health and well-being.

It was initially thought that some presentation materials were high-level enough that they could be included in the normal Students' Council document package. However, taking a trauma-informed approach toward the situation, it was agreed that keeping all presentation materials private would be best for all involved, and they were removed from the Students' Council archive. Council document submission methods and committee reporting standards are being reexamined to prevent issues like this from happening again.

We apologize to the complainant, who believed that this situation was fully resolved. We deeply regret that the mistaken release of these materials may cause further harm, and we are striving to move forward in a trauma-informed way that protects the complainant and all future complainants as much as possible. We also apologize to the current leadership of Alpha Psi, who have acted in good faith throughout this process. Due to the privacy of the complaint, we spoke openly with the Gateway about our processes, but have asked them to not run an article about the details of the complaint.

This was one of the first official complaints to go to SGC and subsequently be presented to Council. The UASU has learned from this process and will be making improvements going forward. We are committed to working toward a safe and welcoming campus for all students, and ensuring that anyone who files a complaint can expect the highest level of confidentiality.

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