Institutes of higher education (IHEs) are confronting a systemic challenge in which faculty or staff who have been found responsible for sexual or gender harassment are able to transition from one IHE to another without the new employer’s knowledge of prior misconduct. This is often known as “passing the harasser,” and may enable known harassers to withdraw from ongoing investigations before a conclusion is reached and sanctions are enforced.

Individuals from the Response Working Group within the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education will examine practices and key considerations related to policies for preventing “Passing the Harasser.” In addition to reviewing policies and practices from IHEs, individuals from the Response Working Group will also review relevant research studies and both federal and state-level legislation to assess the context around these policies. The Response Working Group will focus on three distinct but interrelated areas:

• The Landscape of Policies and Practices in Higher Education to Prevent Passing the Harasser. Members of the Response Working Group will consider how federal- and state-level laws and regulations impact the policies of individual IHEs, and may explore how organizations outside the field of higher education have approached efforts to prevent passing the harasser.
• Current Challenges and Strategies in Implementing Policies and Practices to Prevent Passing the Harasser. Members of the Response Working Group will consider how individual IHEs and systems have approached known challenges to implementing these policies, including delays in the hiring process, administrative burden, and defining the scope of the disclosure request.
• Areas of Further Research to Prevent Passing the Harasser. Members of the Response Working Group will identify areas of research needed to improve the development and implementation of these policies.

Using the information gathered, individuals from the Response Working Group will produce a paper that serves as a resource for higher education administrators and leadership to explore the challenges and potential resolutions around developing or implementing policies to prevent Passing the Harasser. With an improved understanding of existing policies and the reasoning behind them, institutes of higher education can then develop and implement policies to prevent Passing the Harasser in whichever way best suits their own communities.

The goal of this resource is to build upon information within the National Academies’ 2018 report on Sexual Harassment of Women by providing more specific information related to the implementation of policies and sanctions. It will also build upon the information gathered from previously published innovative practices by the University of California, Davis and the University of Wisconsin System, which explores the goals, development, and implementation of their respective policies. Additionally, this resource will complement the 2022 Perspective Paper on Exploring Sanctions and Early Interventions for Faculty Sexual Harassment in Higher Education (authored by members of the Action Collaborative’s Response Working Group), which raised concerns that nontransparent practices, confidential sanctions, and lack of coordinated documentation of faculty personnel files may facilitate the problem of passing the harasser.