HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: My University Wastes Time and Money on Sexual Assault Training.

I am on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater (UWW), where I teach English. Last February, all members of the campus community were informed by our Title IX Coordinator, Paige Reed, that all members of the campus community would have to complete an online training program because the university’s newly approved “Sexual Violence, Sexual Harassment and Intimate Partner Violence Policy” requires it.

Further details, I read, would be forthcoming from the university’s office of human resources and diversity.

I found it a curious fact that, six years after having received the “Dear Colleague” letter, the issue remains so severe as to warrant this anachronistic reeducation on workplace discrimination. And it had never occurred to me that I might need to be “trained” how to avoid committing a crime, or that there is any need to reprise rudimentary lessons in refraining from boorishness in public life.

Although the training seemed unnecessary, UWW wasn’t asking for my time—it was demanding it.

Soon, the follow-up email arrived. I found out that the training required me to go through a program devised by a company named LawRoom. This company is cashing-in on the training market, but I have not been able to find out how much UWW paid for its program.

Why are higher education institutions such cesspits of sexual coercion and administrative overreach?