Coordinated Campus Compliance: Connecting Title VI, Title IX, Clery, and Youth Protection

Gina Maisto Smith, Chair and Founder of Cozen O’Connor’s Institutional Response Group, focuses her practice on the institutional response to sexual and gender-based harassment and violence, child abuse, and other forms of harassment, discrimination, and criminal conduct. Ranked nationally by Chambers USA for her extensive experience in higher education, Gina provides consulting, counseling, and legal advice on all aspects of civil rights and regulatory compliance under Title VI, Title VII, and Title IX, the Clery Act, and youth protection frameworks. She assists institutions in designing effective institutional responses that integrate the complex federal and state regulatory framework with the unique dynamics of interpersonal misconduct and its impact on individuals, institutions, and communities. Gina engages in change management to help educational institutions build integrated compliance programs that prioritize care for campus constituents, centralized reporting and informed responses, and holistic and pan-institutional coordination of compliance responsibilities under Title IX and Title VI. Gina also assists educational institutions in meeting federal compliance obligations and responding to investigations by the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Clery Compliance Division, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, and the U.S. Department of Justice. She served on the training subcommittee of the U.S. Department of Education’s Negotiated Rulemaking Committee for the 2013 Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and has been designated as an approved equity consultant by OCR. Informed by decades of higher education experience, Gina is also the founder of Meyestro, an enterprise-level governance, risk, and compliance software, built on Salesforce, and designed to address the complex issues facing higher education.

Leslie Gomez co-chairs Cozen O’Connor’s Institutional Response Group, a national practice dedicated to improving institutional responses to sexual and gender-based harassment and violence, discrimination and harassment, and child abuse. Ranked nationally by Chambers USA for her extensive experience in higher education, Leslie’s practice focuses on effective implementation of civil rights and child protection frameworks.

A former career child abuse and sexual violence prosecutor, Leslie helps institutions develop comprehensive systems, structures, policies, procedures, and compliance programs to effectively implement civil rights and child protection laws, including Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, the Clery Act, and state laws. She conducts comprehensive policy audits and external investigations; drafts policies and procedures; develops multi-disciplinary teams; advises on civil rights investigation, resolution and appeal proceedings; provides legal advice on all aspects of the institutional response to reports of misconduct; and assists institutions in meeting federal compliance obligations and responding to regulatory enforcement investigations by the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Justice. Leslie also conducts sensitive investigations and after-action reviews into critical campus incidents and is nationally recognized for her knowledge and experience related to child abuse, child protection, and child protective services laws.