Featured series 
Campus & Community
Harvard aligns resources for combating bias, harassment
Peggy Newell (left) and Nicole Merhill.
Harvard file photos
Office for Community Support, Non-Discrimination, Rights and Responsibilities targets discrimination, bullying, sexual harassment, and other misconduct
Harvard on Monday announced the establishment of the new Office for Community Support, Non-Discrimination, Rights and Responsibilities (CSNDR), a move that aligns resources, supports, and policy implementation previously housed across the Office for Community Conduct (OCC) and the Office for Gender Equity (OGE).
Nicole Merhill, the director of CSNDR and the University’s Title IX coordinator, and Peggy Newell, vice president and deputy to the president, spoke with the Gazette about this new alignment of resources and supports available to all members of the community, the laws and policies the new office upholds, and the shared responsibility for creating a safer and more inclusive community.
What is the Office for Community Support, Non-Discrimination, Rights and Responsibilities (CSNDR)?
Newell: This new office brings together all of the important work happening under the Office for Community Conduct and the Office for Gender Equity and continues it in one place, with the aim of making it easier for members of our community to know what resources and supports are available to them and where they can go in order to access them.
Merhill: Under the newly formed CSNDR umbrella, we will have further aligned these resources and supports — the confidential SHARE team, the prevention team, and the NDAB [Non-Discrimination and Anti-Bullying] and Title IX compliance team. Both the prevention team and the compliance team have expanded their portfolios to cover Title IX, other sexual misconduct, non-discrimination, and anti-bullying. The SHARE team remains dedicated to serving community members who may have experienced sexual harassment, sexual assault, stalking, abusive relationships, or discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation.
The CSNDR office works to provide accessible information on discrimination, including antisemitism and Islamophobia, sexual harassment, other sexual misconduct, and bullying, which are grounded in the commitment to working to ensure that every member of our community has the opportunity to learn, conduct research, and work in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, and other forms of harm. Before this merger, OCC focused on implementing the University’s policies and procedures for non-discrimination and anti-bullying, while the Title IX team within OGE focused on implementing the University’s policies and procedures addressing sexual harassment and other sexual misconduct.
Newell: Nicole came to Harvard from the federal agency that oversees both Title IX and Title VI as well as other federal civil rights laws. During her nearly 10 years here as the director of OGE and as the University Title IX coordinator, she has built strong relationships across Harvard’s Schools and in our community. We’re very fortunate to have her — a civil rights attorney who knows both what is required by these regulations and how to navigate Harvard systems to increase access to support — leading this new CSNDR office.
Why were OCC and OGE combined?
Newell: We believe the new structure will improve access to supports and resources available to members of our community and the expectations built into our policies, as well as our ability to respond to policy violations appropriately, when they happen.
Merhill: Yes, OCC and the Title IX team within OGE had parallel missions — to provide information about their respective policies and procedures, support community members regarding those policies, review concerns under the policies including examining systemic impact, handling formal complaints, informal resolutions, appeals, and hearings under these policies.
Newell: We recognized that our community was confused by different offices handling concerns that touched on issues of discrimination. Now, the NDAB and Title IX compliance team within CSNDR can support individuals in response to issues of discrimination, bullying, sexual harassment and other sexual misconduct, which is more convenient and efficient, and responsive to what we have heard from community members. Also, many of the School-based staff who serve as local designated resources for non-discrimination and anti-bullying also serve as local Title IX resource coordinators. With all of those considerations in mind, combining OCC and the Title IX team within OGE into one compliance team under CSNDR is a better way to serve our community.
What can community members expect from this change?
Merhill: All previous resources, including the good work of the prevention team and our confidential SHARE team, will continue.
The prevention team’s mission will expand to look at how we strengthen capacity across our community to combat forms of harm broadly, whether it’s in the realm of discrimination based on a protected class, sexual harassment, or anti-bullying. It’s a nice alignment, because often our prevention team would lead bystander training and be asked to incorporate race-based or other protected class discrimination.
The invaluable SHARE team remains dedicated to providing individual and community-level support to those who may have experienced sexual harassment, sexual assault, stalking, abusive relationships, or discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation. Additionally, the SHARE team will continue to offer confidential accountability support for individuals and communities who may have caused harm. These critically supportive resources have not changed.
And the new NDAB and Title IX compliance team allows us to be more efficient by being able to address policy-related issues in one space, under the University’s policies addressing non-discrimination, anti-bullying, sexual harassment, and other sexual misconduct, without a potential hurdle of separate or duplicate outreach and engagement that could emerge in the previous structure.
In addition to bringing together existing staff from OCC and the Title IX team within OGE, over the summer we hired a new staff member who serves as the University’s Title VI coordinator and deputy for compliance. We are also in the process of hiring two additional staff members — a deputy for Title VI and Title IX compliance, who will support our network of local Title IX resource coordinators and local designated resources and serve as a facilitator of informal resolutions, and a deputy Title VI coordinator and case manager, who will consult on complaints of discrimination, including all complaints of antisemitism. Each of these roles will bring additional support and expertise to the NDAB and Title IX compliance team.
You mentioned that you expanded the resources in the compliance team. Can you tell us more about those changes?
Merhill: On the compliance side, as I mentioned earlier, over the summer we filled a new position, the Title VI coordinator and secretary for compliance, who oversees the formal complaint side of the work and who has already been working with our Schools and community members on these issues. Our newest staff member has extensive experience addressing concerns of Title VI and Title IX discrimination at the federal level, including investigating and resolving concerns of sexual harassment, racial harassment, and discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry, including antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of harm.
When we were assessing the new NDAB and Title IX compliance team’s needs, we also heard from the community a desire for the processes related to reviewing and responding to complaints to proceed more quickly. Based on that feedback, we created and are actively recruiting two new positions to provide additional support for the community and make those processes more efficient: a deputy for Title VI and Title IX compliance and a deputy Title VI coordinator and case manager.
CSNDR is responsible for providing essential trainings on non-discrimination, sexual harassment, and other misconduct. Do you anticipate any changes to training that the University offers?
Merhill: Today we rolled out an eLearning module to all incoming and returning students across the University. All students are required to complete the course in order to be enrolled in courses at Harvard.
On Sept. 8, the module will be assigned to all staff, faculty, and postdoctoral fellows. This module will be substantially similar to the module provided to students, but it also includes information for faculty, staff, and postdoctoral fellows on their role as “responsible employees” for matters under the University’s Title IX and other sexual misconduct policies.
The course takes about an hour to complete.
Newell: We really appreciate our community members taking the time, and we welcome everyone’s feedback as this is our first iteration where we combine non-discrimination and harassment, including antisemitism and Islamophobia, sexual harassment, and other sexual misconduct into one module.
Merhill: It’s an hour of time spent on issues that are exceedingly important for all of us to recognize, understand, and actively address. The module includes information on our community expectations as reflected in our policies, our own individual responsibilities in our work to meet those expectations, what the University’s responsibilities are, and what resources are available if someone encounters one of these concerns.
Where can Harvard community members learn more about the resources CSNDR provides?
Merhill: In addition to the information in the eLearning initiative, we rolled out a new website at csndr.harvard.edu today. We encourage everyone to visit the website and also provide feedback. The website is organized according to each team’s services and resources, and you are invited to visit each of the teams to learn more about their work in each of those spaces. We look forward to continuing and deepening our work in this important space.
