Maine Revised Statutes Title 20-A. Education § 12985. Interpersonal violence climate survey dissemination; aggregate data collection; reporting

1. Dissemination; conduct. The commissioner shall provide the interpersonal violence climate survey biennially to each institution, and each institution shall biennially conduct the interpersonal violence climate survey on each campus. Each institution may append campus-specific questions to the survey, as long as any additional questions do not require the disclosure of any personally identifiable information and are not unnecessarily traumatizing for victims of sexual violence, intimate partner violence and stalking. All students must be offered an opportunity to complete part or all of the interpersonal violence climate survey.

2. Report to commissioner; website. Within 120 days after completion of the interpersonal violence climate survey, each institution shall submit a summary of the results and the aggregate data, with any personally identifiable information removed or redacted, supporting the results to the commissioner and post the following on the institution of higher education's publicly accessible website in a way that does not personally identify any student:

3. Data collection. The department shall establish a data repository for all summaries and anonymized and aggregated data of interpersonal violence climate surveys submitted by institutions. The department shall ensure that the interpersonal violence climate survey data submitted by all institutions in accordance with subsection 2 is available to the public in an easily accessible manner on the department's publicly accessible website.

4. Protection of personal information. The interpersonal violence climate survey must be designed to collect anonymous responses and may not publicly disclose any personally identifying information. An institution of higher education may not use or attempt to use information collected through the interpersonal violence climate survey to identify or contact any individual student on campus, nor may the responses to the survey be used as the basis for any type of investigation or disciplinary or legal proceeding.