Catherine Spear, the Vice President of Equity, Equal Opportunity, and Title IX (EEOTIX), will leave USC effective April 5 to take on the inaugural role of the Executive Director of the Office of Civil Rights at University of California Office of the President (UCOP).
Current Associate Vice President and Title IX Coordinator, Linda Hoos, Spear’s number two, will be taking over as the new EEOTIX vice president.
“These are capstone opportunities for these two amazing women,” said Felicia A. Washington, the Senior Vice President of Human Resources at USC, in an interview with Annenberg Media.
The UCOP manages the 10 campuses, five medical centers and three affiliated national laboratories within the UC system.
The Inaugural Office of Civil Rights will combine the existing Systemwide Title IX Office, a new Systemwide Anti-Discrimination Office, and a new Systemwide Disability Rights Office, all to be housed under the leadership of Catherine Spear.
“Hiring Catherine is one of a series of steps we are taking to provide centralized oversight for these campus functions and a more consistent approach to how the University responds to allegations of discrimination and harassment,” said UC President Michael V. Drake in a statement to the UC community.
Spear was recruited to USC in August of 2020 after her time at Stanford and UVA, where she held similar roles coordinating Title IX and equity.
Over Spear’s tenure, the Office of EEOTIX has expanded and restructured to prioritize victim care and cross-campus collaboration for incident resolution. Under her leadership EEOTIX has launched their Intake, Outreach, and Support Team, including “Dedicated Care Managers’' who handle initial reports and provide care as well as academic or workplace accommodations. She has also spearheaded the Initial Assessment Triage Team (IATT), which invokes the collaboration of multiple campus partners to recognize the multi-faceted needs of students and other USC community members.
“I’m confident that we likely have the most comprehensive approach to this [EEOTIX] work at USC,” said Washington.
Washington recruited Spear and Hoos and will now oversee the transition as Spear prepares to exit her post.
“We are deeply grateful to Catherine for her impact in helping to transform USC’s efforts to foster a community free from discrimination and harassment,” wrote Washington in a letter to the Trojan Community Thursday.
During her time at USC, Spear’s office fielded the fallout of the Varsity Blues scandal, the George Tyndall lawsuit years and the Sigma Nu sexual assault allegations. Spear was no stranger to these national limelight EEOTIX cases, after leaving Stanford’s Title IX Office following the Brock Turner rape case, a sexual harassment investigation at Sigma Alpha Epsilon and the travel ban on the Stanford marching band. More recently their office has faced multiple complaints regarding heightened tensions due to the Israel-Hamas war.
According to Spear, the greatest lesson she learned from conducting investigations over her career has been to maintain “continuous improvement mode.”
“The work is hard. You need to be mindful of the feedback that you’re receiving in real time and look at the areas where you have discretion to implement policy or staffing or structures in a way that tries to be human focused,” she said.
More logistically, Spear said the most effective change she has seen and made has been in separating and clarifying the roles of different players within EEOTIX, such as investigators, care managers, and resolution teams, a structure she took from her time at UVA. In clearly defining roles, Spear said the office can operate smoothly and more effectively for victims and those who need resources.
Hoos said her priorities for stepping into this role are to continue building trust with students through the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and other student groups as well as collaborating with Student Health on the Student Well-being Index Survey (SWIS). Another area of improvement is the timeliness of investigations and resolution implementation.
One of the most eagerly anticipated items on the EEOTIX docket, according to Hoos, is the forthcoming announcement and implementation of the Biden Administration’s Title IX Regulation. Initially slated for release last May, this regulation has faced delays but is expected to be issued this summer.
“We will absolutely be jumping on the regulation as soon as it is issued so that we can fully understand it and make sure that we’re implementing it correctly,” Hoos said. “We can continue being an office that promotes care, and responsiveness.”