Penn State’s Title IX coordinator tackles sexual assault, discrimination issues

A frame behind Paul Apicella’s desk holds three photos. Seven-year-old Evangeline, 5-year-old Genevieve and 2-year-old Leo smile through the glass, each holding a block letter. Together the letters spell “Dad.”

The photographs stand out in the otherwise paper-filled office of the first person assigned solely to oversee Penn State’s response to the sexual assault and harassment problem plaguing it and campuses nationwide.

The children in those pictures don’t yet completely understand what their father does. For the time being, he said, he explains his job to his oldest daughter in simple terms: “Sometimes people need help” or “Sometimes people makes mistakes.”

“There’s going to come a time when those conversations are going to get a little more difficult,” he added.

As Title IX coordinator, Apicella, 34, has the job of ensuring that the university complies with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits colleges from discriminating based on sex.

The 2012 graduate of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law came to Penn State in late November. He previously spent two years as an attorney at the Philadelphia-based law firm Ballard Spahr LLP and one year at Drexel University as a deputy Title IX coordinator for students and Title IX compliance specialist.

Apicella’s path to becoming an attorney was unconventional. He took time off between high school and college, serving in the U.S. Navy from 2000 to 2005. He completed some college classes while in the Navy, took time off to travel after his service ended, and then graduated with a psychology degree from the University of Arizona in 2008.

Since arriving in State College, Apicella’s days have been busy as he pores over recommendations made by the university’s sexual assault task force last year and assesses the size and scope of the staff he hopes will be hired soon.

While his job will get easier administratively when more Title IX staff members are hired, it will remain difficult emotionally.

Apicella doesn’t respond directly to each report of sexual assault or misconduct on campus, but he often sits with sexual assault survivors or those accused of sexual misconduct to get information about an incident or address questions they might have. He said he wants every person affected by sexual misconduct to know he is on campus and to feel comfortable meeting with him.

“The human side of it — this stuff never gets easy,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I’ve done this for years and I am comfortable dealing with crisis situations and in dealing with folks who are going through some really difficult times.”

When Apicella speaks to students during prevention programs, many assume his position pertains to gender equality in athletics rather than issues of sexual assault. Title IX gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s for its mandate that male and female athletes have equal opportunities to play college sports.

“We need to communicate with students on their terms, in ways that they understand,” he said. “We need to talk about the issues themselves and call them what they are instead of depersonalizing it and stepping back and referring to it by the name of a statute.”

Apicella doesn’t want to sterilize the problem by referring to incidents under a vague umbrella of “Title IX issues,” he said. He prefers to talk about specific examples, such as a gender discrimination situation in a classroom, sexual assault or forcible rape.

In sexual assault cases, it is uncommon for both sides to leave an adjudication process satisfied. Two male students recently sued Penn State, alleging that its new Title IX investigative model denied them their right to due process. In this model, sexual assault cases do not go through a hearing process but are dealt with through a trained investigator who reports the findings to a panel.

Some in the legal community have spoken out against these models, arguing that the standard of evidence is too low. Others go so far as to say that universities should not be tasked with adjudicating sexual assault cases and that cases should only go through the criminal justice system.

“We deal with underage drinking. We deal with drug offenses. We deal with all of these sorts of things and no one ever raises their hand and says, ‘Hey, that’s a law enforcement matter. Don’t touch it,’ ” Apicella said. “… What (critics are) really saying is: ‘Those are difficult issues. That’s a difficult situation and we’re not comfortable that you’ve got the tools to deal with it in a fair way.’ That’s a different issue.”

Apicella’s experience dealing with difficult issues goes beyond his legal work.

In two different stints between 2006 and 2008, he managed group homes in Tucson, Ariz., as well as a boys’ ranch two hours away in Elfrida, Ariz. Working with at-risk youth, many of whom had been through the criminal justice system, instilled in Apicella a love for the human side of any profession and a work ethic that doesn’t allow for much down time.

“If I left work and I went home and a kid got caught with drugs in the middle of the night, or two kids were fighting each other in the middle of the night, or a kid jumped out the window and ran away in the middle of the night, there was no one else,” he said. “I was going to show up in the middle of the night. ... That line between ‘I’m at work’ and ‘I’m not at work’ was really blurred, and that might not work for everybody but for me it’s kind of second nature.”

At Penn State, Apicella said his goal is to put himself out of a job — to get to a point where there isn’t enough for him to do each day to justify the university paying him. Realistically, though, he knows there is always more to be done, and success in reducing gender-based violence is difficult to define.

In 2014, Penn State logged 18 reported sex offenses, according to the university’s Clery Act reporting statistics. However, it is difficult to say how many sexual assaults occur at colleges or in the general population because many go unreported.

“I would love to get to a point where we can say, in this regard, we don’t look anything different than the general public in the United States,” Apicella said. “Even then, I would still say we’ve got work to do.”

Around 6 p.m. on a Wednesday last month, Apicella powered off his computer and shoved some files into his briefcase. The Boucke Building was mostly dark; those in surrounding offices had left. It would appear Apicella’s day was over but that was not entirely true.

He was heading home, he said, and planned to spend time with his children and his wife, Nicole.

Then, in a few hours, he would get back to work.

This story was originally published February 11, 2016 at 9:13 PM with the headline "Penn State’s Title IX coordinator tackles sexual assault, discrimination issues."