THE THOUGHT POLICE ARE STILL AT WORK.

It's still possible, indeed encouraged, to rat out the unwoke learning online at Northern Illinois University.

NIU’s Ethics and Compliance Office announced a COVID-19 update to remind students and faculty about its high priority to keep discrimination and harassment out of academic and work spaces.

The update lets the campus community know that the office is still open and will be operating on a remote basis for the remainder of the semester. The update also provides ways people can report incidents of discrimination, harassment and sexual misconduct.

Students and faculty can report acts of discrimination or harassment using the “compliant resolution” tab on its website.

Nothing quite like anonymous accusations to foster social solidarity in the presence of social distancing.

Note, though, the functionary tasked with implementing the ukase.

Sarah Garner, Ethics and Compliance Officer and Title IX Coordinator, said interim measures are implemented when there is a report of discrimination, harassment or sexual misconduct. The measures taken depend on the situation and can range from movement of resident halls to issuing no-contact orders for the people involved.

That's an interesting job title. "Ethics" is as in the required ethics training (thank you, Rod Blagojevich.) "Compliance" might refer to a number of things, although in university-speak that most commonly refers to damping down corruption in the revenue sports, in order to preserve the fiction that the athletes are students, receiving only the approved extra benefits.  "Title IX" is that part of the 1972 Civil Rights Act most commonly applied to spending on sports, although there are all sorts of other opportunities to creatively use it.

Then, despite the current national government rolling back the Obama "Dear Colleague" letter, the spirit of It Is Your Duty still lives, presumption of innocence be damned.

The update also reminds people that the the university's policies on discrimination, harassment and sexual misconduct also apply to online and virtual misconduct. It states that any in-person behavior that is prohibited by policy is likely to be prohibited in cyber forms like cyber harassment and cyberstalking.

Faculty and staff who are deemed “responsible employees” are reminded that they’re expected to report sexual misconduct incidents, especially when members of the campus community are involved regardless of how they learn of the potential misconduct.

Garner says the “responsible employee” term comes from the Title IX amendment and the definition comes from the federal government.

“[A responsible employee] is anyone who has the authority to action, to address sexual misconduct, has the duty reporting sexual misconduct and the student reasonably believes has the authority or the duty to report sexual misconduct,” Garner said.

Garner said all staff and faculty are considered “responsible employees,” but members of the confidential resources are not.

So it always is with the nomenklatura.