A member of NIU’s governing board believes that the schools’ sexual harassment policies need revision.

At the March Board of Regents meeting, Regent Sylvia Nichols suggested that NIU, Illinois State University in Normal and Sangamon State University in Springfield develop a sexual harassment survey.

“We initiated some tentative investigations” to look at university sexual harassment policies about a year ago, she said. The policies were checked a year later to see how well they had been implemented, and Nichols said she believes some revisions are necessary.

Marilyn Monteiro, NIU affirmative action director, said NIU’s policy is strong and any changes would most likely involve revisions to the existing policy. In the past, NIU has been complimented on the thoroughness of its policy, she said.

In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission issued a federal regulation defining sexual harassment and declaring it against the law, she said.

The first sexual harassment policy at ISU was implemented in 1982, said ISU Public Relations Officer Porter McNeil. Most universities implemented policies in line with state and federal laws, he said.

Marge Fonza, president of SSU’s affirmative action program, said the sexual policies at SSU have “evolved over the years.” When SSU was founded in 1970, it had grievance policies and procedures for people with charges of sexual harassment, but the 1982 policy now is being amended, she said.

Gloria Davis, president of affirmative action at ISU, said, “All universities have sexual harassment problems. We have always had a sexual harassment policy.”

Davis attributes the existence of ISU’s sexual harassment policy to the “campus being pro-active” on sexual harassment policies.

The ISU sexual harassment policy, approved in March 1980 and revised in June 1988, needs to be more specific, Davis said. The university “always looks to update and make as clear as possible” the sexual harassment policies, she said.

The revisions will clarify the meaning of a “hostile environment” for women and what constitutes guilt in sexual harassment. ISU also would like to inform more people on the campus of the policy, she said.