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Universities¡¯ efforts to stamp out sexual harassment and misconduct are being hampered because of a lack of regulation requiring staff to disclose any previous incidents to new employers, according to campaigners.

Currently, staff accused of sexual harassment are free to leave their position while under investigation and gain a new job at a different institution with no obligation to disclose any allegations or ongoing investigations ¨C an issue known as ¡°pass the perpetrator¡±.

In January 2024, the 1752 Group, which campaigns against sexual violence in UK higher education, launched a campaign urging universities to join the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme, an internationally recognised initiative??for employers to commit to sharing information about any ongoing or upheld disciplinary cases towards an individual during the recruitment process.?

It does not prevent candidates from being hired for a role if any investigations come to light and does not hold any central database of those accused of sexual harassment,?which organisers say makes it GDPR compliant, instead committing employers to sharing information with each other regarding any ongoing or previous investigations.

However, the push has not prompted any universities to sign up and the group says that the regulator, the Office for Students, now needs to get involved.

Clarissa DiSantis, an expert in addressing gender-based violence at universities who became the first person in the UK sector to hold a dedicated role in this area when appointed the sexual misconduct prevention manager at Durham 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ in 2016, said that universities are failing to address the issue.?

¡°At the moment, there¡¯s nothing that universities are doing to protect students and other employees from bad recruitment practices that lead to perpetrators moving between institutions,¡± she said. ¡°This is a massive issue that¡¯s happening for students and employees, and no one¡¯s doing anything about it.¡±

New conditions from the OfS on sexual harassment?recently came into force for English universities, however, DiSantis said it was a ¡°real miss¡± to not have requirements on safer hiring included.

¡°This is something that they could have required and is something they could have pushed for,¡± DiSantis, now?the education and training lead for the Active* Consent programme at the 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ of Galway, said. ¡°From my reading of the regulations, there is no mention of ¡®pass the perpetrator¡¯ as an issue that needs to be addressed or a risk that needs to be mitigated, and there¡¯s no mention of expectations and recruitment practices.¡±

On top of the recent OfS requirements on sexual harassment, universities are also subject to new requirements from the Workers¡¯ Protection Act, which requires employers to take ¡°reasonable steps¡± to protect employees from sexual harassment, and DiSantis added that universities could be falling short of these obligations if no action is taken to ensure safer hiring.

Anna Bull, co-founder of The 1752 Group, added that ¡°no institution wants to be the first¡± to take action in this area. While universities claim they are ¡°worried¡± about GDPR implications of the scheme, Bull noted that the scheme is designed to be GDPR compliant. ¡°Data privacy issues are not a barrier,¡± she said.

Bull said in professions like healthcare, social work, solicitors and schools, recruitment practices and codes of conduct are in place to ensure they are ¡°safely recruiting people who aren¡¯t going to abuse their positions of power¡±, but such obligations do not exist in higher education.

There have been cases of academics facing libel action when trying to whistleblow against staff accused of sexual harassment, and Bull said that ¡°it shouldn¡¯t fall to individuals to try and tackle this¡±.?

¡°The fact that individual higher education institutions are nervous about signing up to this suggests that it would be helpful to have action from the regulator, and it would have been a really helpful thing for the OfS to put into the [recent sexual harassment] regulations.¡±

An OfS spokesperson said that its new regulation ¡°seeks to ensure universities and colleges can better protect and support¡± students and they now ¡°must publish and maintain policies and procedures that set out the steps they will take that could make a significant and credible difference¡±.

But, they added, it was for individual institutions ¡°to make decisions on whether membership of any scheme will help them achieve this¡±.

¡°However, all institutions registered with us must enable students to report incidents, provide support for those affected, and let students know how incidents will be handled. They also need to deliver understandable and evidence-based training for staff and students.¡±

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com