The Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity is tucked away in a corner on East 12th Avenue. From the Duck Store, walk west down 13th Avenue until you reach Hilyard. Turn right toward Sacred Heart Medical Center. Carefully use the crosswalk on the three-lane stretch of Hilyard Street sandwiched between the hospital’s many buildings. About 100 feet ahead, turn right into the courtyard. Enter 677 E. 12th Ave. Go up four floors. Go down the hallway. Take the first door on your… left? Right?
Inside the reception area is a small desk. Pamphlets are arranged on the wall nearby. The office is a maze of cubicles and private offices with views of the hospital and cars driving down Hilyard.
Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity moved its offices  from Oregon Hall about two years ago. The department works with campus staff and faculty to help guide students to the right place.
“It is a concern for us that being off campus, it is possible a student could get discouraged from coming in,” office director Penelope Daugherty said.
The difficulty in locating the department is a symptom of a larger problem: the University of Oregon’s sexual assault reporting process is complex and may be so much so that it deters students from seeking help. The methods for informing students about their options are undergoing improvement but the system remains something of an enigma.
On the other side of campus, the Office of the Dean of Students welcomes students with couches and a TV. A walk down the colorful hallway leads to the cushy couch in the office of Associate Dean Chicora Martin. Her rainbow decorated room overlooks the glimmering pools of the Jacqua Center.
The couches in Martin’s building are where most students sit when they begin the reporting process. Sexual assault or harassment by a UO employee gets reported to Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity, but assault or harassment by a student gets reported to the dean of students.
The UO’s student misconduct process follows a series of steps. First the survivor reports to the counseling center, the health center, dean of students or to any staff or faculty member. The student then meets with Sexual Violence Response and Support Services Coordinator Renae DeSautel, who connects the student with support services like counseling and explains the process.
The office then asks whether the student would like to allege a misconduct report. If so, the office conducts an investigation, which is later sent to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards. Once ready, the case can be heard in one of two ways: a panel hearing or an administrative conference. The accused student may choose.
Once the case has been heard, sanctions are given to a student found responsible of misconduct. Sanctions range from a reflection paper at one end to expulsion at the most extreme end.
The dean of students’ website provides a flowchart outlining the reporting process. However, interpreting it is easier said than done. Psychology GTF Carly Smith has witnessed how frustrating the process can be for students. In a class exercise, she divided students into groups, giving each group a different school’s sexual assault reporting process to examine using web searches. The only group that gave up, Smith said, was the one trying to decipher UO’s process. 
The flowchart is not intended to direct students but merely to document the protocol. Martin says the chart is not as accessible as it can be. But DeSautel is available 24/7 to assist students with just that — confusion about the process and where to go. The Office of the Dean of Students also has drop-in hours from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. every day.
Martin says UO’s system mirrors those of other public universities. UC Berkeley, for example, follows a comparable protocol for responding to incidents of sexual assault, and the sanctions are essentially the same.
The process is meant to be educational.
“Our process is not criminal,” Martin said. “Our goal with student conduct is to ensure the safety and security of our campus, and then to educate our students.”
The DOS makes sure to inform students of their options — those who want a criminal case should seek the police or an outside lawyer.
The reporting process as a whole has been fine-tuned in recent years. According to Martin, the university has not recently conducted any general studies or surveys to assess whether the process serves students in the best way possible.
Lack of assessments aside, DeSautel is impressed with UO’s system. She worked at both UC Berkeley and Southern Oregon University and thinks that in comparison, UO has a better response system for cases of sexual assault.
“We take reports seriously. The university is as transparent as it can be,” DeSautel said.
Regardless, Martin understands why students might be in the dark about reporting. First-year students receive sexual assault education through the presentation by Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team at orientation and the online modules. But what students learn at orientation is not necessarily going to stick with them through their college years.
“Juniors or seniors, or grad students who came and have been here a while, maybe didn’t get (the SWAT) information when they were first-year students,” Martin said.
The UO is about to launch a campaign aimed at clarifying the reporting process and improving the services the university offers. The campaign will include a 24-hour sexual assault hotline and a comprehensive, easy-to-use website for support and answers about the process.
The university has also updated its online sexual assault education program required for incoming freshman. As of this past fall, the school now uses a program called Haven. Similar to its predecessor, Sexual Assault EDU, Haven complements the orientation SWAT presentation, educating students about the dynamics of sexual violence and the resources available to them in the event of an incident. Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Director Abigail Leeder is also exploring other prevention education modules.
This fall, the UO began mandating its online training program for all staff and faculty. The program — which has been around for several years — includes how to respond to student or employee cases of sexual harassment and assault. Daugherty says many of the staff and faculty have availed themselves of that resource.
Despite the trainings, mandatory reporters may not necessarily know where to direct students in the case of an incident.
“Can I attest to the fact they are all paying attention and aware?” Daugherty said. “I couldn’t do that.”
Complications or issues with the process could potentially have adverse effects. UO psychology professor Jennifer Freyd has championed the research about what happens when institutions fail to treat survivors of trauma properly.
“The lack of good process, the lack of prevention and the problematic ways people have been treated when they’ve tried to report — what we’ve measured is that’s what is harmful to people,” Freyd said.
Freyd and Smith found that procedural issues may lead to serious psychological distress.
“From a research standpoint … the difficulty of navigating the process is not lost on students,” Smith said.
Freyd sees easy fixes to minimize potential psychological distress.
“If each victim had someone to advocate for them, to help them navigate the system, to help them at each stage — one consistent person — it would buffer a lot of the problem,” Freyd said.