Gov. Wes Moore on Thursday issued a directive to the Maryland Higher Education Commission requesting that the state agency issue a set of recommendations for improving policies related to campus sexual assault in the next 90 days.
In his letter, Moore asked the Maryland agency to release recommendations for strengthening sexual misconduct policies, frameworks for reporting misconduct and disciplinary standards across the state’s colleges.
The governor’s directive comes amid a national conversation about sexual assault on college campuses this month, after a former Cornell University student sued the university, alleging she was gang raped in a fraternity house.
“Deeply troubling accounts have emerged in recent days of how students outside of Maryland have bravely come forward to report sexual assault and have been failed by the institutions that are supposed to ensure their safety,” Moore wrote in his letter to Elena Quiroz-Livanis, the commission’s interim secretary.
The Maryland Higher Education Commission should work with Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office on the recommendations, Moore wrote.
“It is our collective moral and legal obligation,” he wrote, to provide Maryland’s college students with “safe and secure learning environments.”
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A spokesperson for the commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday morning.
State policy requires every college and university in Maryland to adopt and submit a written policy on sexual assault to the state’s higher education commission. The commission is then responsible for periodically reviewing these policies and making recommendations to improve them.
“This is a call to action,” Moore wrote. “In Maryland, we will continue to identify opportunities to enhance the safety of our college campuses and to ensure accountability when these efforts fail.”
The directive comes after the Trump administration last month rescinded a Biden-era policy that extended the federal ban on sex discrimination in schools through Title IX to LGBTQIA+ people.
The Cornell case has garnered international attention. The university’s president has since banned all fraternity parties for this academic year and hired an outside investigator to look into the incident. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has appointed a special prosecutor to independently investigate the case.
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