Recommendation: The Secretary of State should take additional steps to identify diversity issues that could indicate potential barriers to equal opportunity in its workforce. For example, State could conduct additional analyses of workforce data and of employee groups' feedback. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of State
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of the Departmental Enforcement Center and the Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development should develop written guidance for CPD's field offices to use when determining whether to make a referral to the Departmental Enforcement Center. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of the Departmental Enforcement Center and the Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing should develop written guidance for PIH's field offices to use when determining whether to make a referral to the Departmental Enforcement Center. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of the Departmental Enforcement Center and the Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development should develop targets for the number of referrals that CPD should make to DEC that are based on program risk. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of the Departmental Enforcement Center and the Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing should develop targets for the number of referrals that PIH should make to DEC that are based on program risk. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of the Departmental Enforcement Center should develop and implement performance measures that assess the outcomes, or desired results, of its enforcement activities. (Recommendation 5)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of the Departmental Enforcement Center should develop and implement performance measures of its timeliness in completing oversight reviews. (Recommendation 6)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of the Departmental Enforcement Center should track the implementation of the recommendations that it makes to program offices as a result of its oversight reviews. (Recommendation 7)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Director of the Departmental Enforcement Center should develop controls to ensure that analysts consistently and reliably record dates related to referral activity, corrective action taken, and other key information used to determine DEC's impact. (Recommendation 8)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Department of Education's Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights should determine the extent to which Title IX coordinators at the K-12 level are aware of and using the tools recommended in OCR's existing guidance and any barriers preventing their use of this guidance, and use this information in OCR's efforts to encourage them to work with athletics administrators on ensuring equal athletic opportunities. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Education: Office for Civil Rights
Status: Open

Comments: In November 2018, the Office for Civil Rights sent an e-mail to its Regional Directors to inform them of GAO's report, remind them of the importance of coordination between Title IX coordinators and athletics administrators, and encourage them to look for opportunities in their investigations and compliance work to examine the role of Title IX coordinators at the K-12 level. Agency officials also said they sent a letter to Title IX coordinators reminding them of the tools available to them under Title IX. While these are important first steps, as we noted in our report, we continue to believe the systemic approach we recommended is necessary. We are working with Education to obtain updated information, and will close the recommendation if Education demonstrates that any of these steps results in obtaining new information about the extent to which K-12 Title IX coordinators are aware of and using existing Title IX tools, and any barriers they face in doing so, and that they have used this information to inform their work with Title IX coordinators.

Recommendation: The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness should fully include in the new policy for sexual harassment the principles in the Centers for Disease Control's framework for sexual violence prevention, including risk and protective factors, risk domains, and tertiary strategies. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: In written comments on the draft report, DOD concurred with this recommendation. In April 2020, officials with the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness stated that development of a new sexual harassment prevention strategy was complete and going through DOD's internal review process. The officials stated that the Undersecretary's review and approval of the assessment report will be complete before the end of the fiscal year, September 30, 2020. We will continue to monitor DOD's efforts and update the status of this recommendation as more information becomes available.

Recommendation: The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness should direct the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness to incorporate in its continuum of harm prevention strategy all the elements that are key for establishing a long-term, results-oriented strategic planning framework. The elements are (1) a mission statement, (2) long-term goals, (3) strategies to achieve goals, (4) external factors that could affect goals, (5) use of metrics to gauge progress, and (6) evaluations of the plan to monitor goals and objectives. (Recommendation 4)

Agency: Department of Defense
Status: Open

Comments: In written comments on the draft report, DOD concurred with this recommendation. According to officials with the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, development of a new sexual harassment prevention strategy is complete and the strategy is going through DOD's internal review process. Additionally, a Defense Equal Opportunity Reform Group assessment report containing a review of the department's efforts to prevent sexual harassment was also submitted to the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. The official's stated that the Undersecretary's review and approval of both the new strategy and assessment report should be completed by the end of the fiscal year, September 30, 2020. We will continue to monitor DOD's efforts to address this recommendation and will update its status when more information becomes available.