The University of Florida released its investigative report today into a fired Title IX official, Chris Loschiavo, who was last known for being removed from the Antonio Callaway student-conduct case and replaced by a lawyer and football booster (who found him not responsible for sexual assault). The investigative report said that Loschiavo had “both a conflict of interest and a lack of independence” in a certain Title IX case—but did not say which one. The problems brought up in the document, though, mirror those brought up by the wide receiver’s lawyers, as reported by the Tampa Bay Times: Loschiavo had a conflict of interest because of his outside consulting work and he held an inappropriate role in the case.
The report does two things. First, it dissects in great detail Loschiavo’s relationship with the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, a high-profile consulting group in the booming field of telling universities how to avoid Title IX lawsuits; second, it discusses a potential conflict of interest with a specific person in a specific case. That part, mysteriously, is almost completely redacted, with one page containing more redaction than information.
Working with NCHERM on Florida’s dime
The report starts with Loschiavo’s relationship with NCHERM as well as some other consulting work he did. Loschiavo did consulting work for them, and records back up a claim that he did some of that while he was on the clock for Florida. Loschiavo got up to $6,000 per day for the consulting he did through the NCHERM, the report said. In one email, he referred to his work at Florida as his “other full time job.”
“The review of outside activities appears to demonstrate that Mr. Loschiavo was actively involved in the operation of NCHERM and the relationship with NCHERM was likely financially important to his household,” the report said.
Loschiavo also did off-campus instruction for the Gehrig Academy, which is sponsored by the Association for Student Conduct Administration, without using vacation time for it, according to the report. Here’s a chart outlining that work:
An unnamed conflict of interest
But when the reports digs deeper, into a potential conflict of interest with a specific person, it turns into mostly blocks of blacked-out copy. It doesn’t say who the person is, or what the conflict was, or how long it went on, let alone how it might have impacted a hearing. Here is how it starts:
The next section looks likes this:
And is followed by this:
The university finally gives a few details here, saying Loschiavo’s conflict of interest came out of his work with NCHERM and that his involvement in the case after being appointed hearing officer was “highly irregular and inappropriate.”
Even the conclusion got heavily redacted.
One email included in the attachments looks like this:
The closest the report comes to giving any sort of detail about how the conflict of interest played out in a specific case is in this email.
In its release, Florida cited only one reason for all the redactions—the federal student privacy law FERPA. The full report released by the university is below: