Title IX Resources

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Campus Resources

Title IX Coordinator

Severo M. Balason, Jr., Vice President of Student Services
Office Phone: (661) 763-7810
Email: Send an email to Severo Balason

Campus Safety & Security

Kevin Altenhofel, Director of Campus Security
Office Phone: (661) 763-7872
Email: Send an email to Severo Balason

Reporting Options

If you are a victim of discrimination based on your sex or gender expression, or of sexual misconduct you have options. You may contact either (or both) of the following:

  • Taft College Campus Safety (661) 763-7872 or
  • Taft Police Department (661) 763-3101

Campus personnel will assist a complainant in filing a police report and assist students in notifying law enforcement authorities, if the victim requests the assistance of these employees. The victim may also decline to notify such authorities.

Reporting to Campus Safety and/or local police is an option at any time. If you choose not to report to the police immediately following a sexual violence incident, you can still make the report at a later time. However, with the passage of time, the ability to gather evidence to assist with criminal prosecution may be limited. Depending on the circumstances, the police may be able to obtain a criminal restraining order on your behalf.

You may report to the campus Title IX Coordinator, who will provide you with written and verbal information regarding applicable District complaint procedures for investigating and addressing the incident. The Title IX Coordinator will also provide you with information regarding resources available to you, as well as information regarding your rights and options.

In order to reduce or eliminate negative impact on you and provide you with available assistance, the campus Title IX Coordinator will discuss with reasonable interim remedies the District may offer prior to conclusion of an investigation or potential disciplinary action. Examples include: adjustment to work assignments, course schedules or supervisory reporting relationship; requiring the accused to move from District-owned or affiliated housing; immediately prohibiting the accused from coming to the campus; or prohibiting the accused from contacting the parties involved in the reported incident.

These options may be available to you whether or not you choose to report the sexual violence to campus public safety or law enforcement. The Title IX Coordinator remains available to assist you and provide you with reasonable remedies requested by you throughout the reporting, investigative, and disciplinary processes, and thereafter.

District Policies and Administrative Regulations

What is Title IX?

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs, including athletic programs, or activities that receive federal funding.

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

Under Title IX, discrimination on the basis of sex can include sexual harassment, rape, and sexual assault.

Suggested Resources & Links

Anti-Racism Resources

Moving Beyond Diversity to Racial Equity

To actualize racial equity, it is incumbent upon us to determine how to use our positions of privilege, influence and power to transform lives through education, particularly for our racially minoritized and marginalized students and community. We cannot talk about equity without talking about inequality. We cannot talk about inclusion without talking about oppression. We cannot say we are committed to equity and be afraid to have an open dialogue about structural racism. We cannot talk about structural racism without talking about anti-racism.

Take a more critical look at what informs your worldview by exploring these Anti-Racism Resources.

Articles

Websites and Tookits

Videos

Books

  • White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin Di Angelo and Michael Eric Dyson
  • How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
  • What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays by Damon Young
  • Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice that Shapes What We See, Think and Do by Jennifer Eberhardt
  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
  • Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge
  • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindess by John Lewis and Michael D’Orso
  • White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson, Ph.D.
  • The Invention of the White Race by Theodore W. Allen
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
  • Choke Hold: Policing Black Men by Paul Butler
  • Engaging the Race Question in U.S. Higher Education by Alicia C. Dowd and Estela Mara Bensimon
  • From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education by Tia Brown McNair, Estela Mara Bensimon, and Lindsey Malcom-Piqueux
  • Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do by Claude M. Steele
  • Overcoming Our Racism: The Journey to Liberation by Derald Wing Sue