After two weeks in her new office, new Title IX coordinator Tracey Tsugawa was getting familiar working at San Jose State University.
“For me, it’s kind of a coming home as I am originally from California,” Tsugawa, who officially started her new role on Oct. 22, said. “I love the diversity of the students here. It’s the most diverse campus that I’ve ever worked on.”
Prior to her current position, Tsugawa had 19 years of experience in civil rights investigation and worked at UC Santa Cruz as the Title IX officer for three years. She rebuilt the office from focusing on harassments and discriminations to solely focusing on Title IX issues because of new laws and regulations. She was then hired as University of Oregon’s director of Affirmative Action & Equal Opportunity Office.
“It’s always important that we have someone who understands the law, understands policies, knows the procedure and does the right thing,” Kathleen Wong(Lau), the Chief Diversity Officer of Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion said.
Wong(Lau) said her first impression of Tsugawa was that she was a calm and thoughtful person.
“When we asked hard questions [during the interviews], she certainly knew good practice and protocols,” she said.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a federal civil rights law and prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education that receives federal funding. Under Title IX, sexual discrimination includes sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape.
“Title IX provides a series of tools for us to be able to maximize gender equity and climate on campus so that students feel safe and can do well,” Wong said.
The role and responsibilities of the Title IX coordinator are to oversee all Title IX complaints on campus. This includes conducting a formal investigation, providing education and training as well as making sure the university complies with California Executive Orders, state and federal laws and regulations.
“This work is about making sure that our students, staffs and faculty feel like they have a safe environment to work, to learn and to live in,” Tsugawa said.
She explained the Title IX office is a neutral office that provides a fair process to everyone who’s involved.
“It’s important that respondents also know that in a case, if somebody has come forward with an allegation against them, we don’t assume that they are guilty. Our job is to do a neutral impartial investigation to find out what happened,” Tsugawa said.
Other than investigations, Wong(Lau) said another major job the Title IX office does, is accommodation for cases.
“If the student says ‘I don’t want to file a formal report, this happened to me two months ago, I think I moved on but I’m actually struggling in classes, I’ve decided I don’t want to file a complaint against this person,’ we can’t force the student to file a complaint,” Wong said, “But no matter what, we will help that student.”
Tsugawa added that if the investigation is not suitable to take place, the office would still make sure the student was connected to support services.
Deputy Title IX coordinator Julie Paisant served as the interim Title IX coordinator since this May. Paisant expected that Tsugawa would build upon the current condition.
“I think we do a lot for our freshman students and incoming staffs and faculty, but for the folks who have been here a while, how are we going to keep them interested? So, we have to be more creative, we can’t do just out of the box. I am looking for her creativity in that area,” Paisant said.
Fresh into the position, Tsugawa continues to learn and adapt in this new environment.
“We’ve got a pretty strong system in place right now,” she said, “I don’t want to predict what changes are going to happen until I get to know people and I understand procedures better in terms of protocols,” Tsugawa said.
