42 U.S.C. § 19195 — Interagency working group

(a) In general: The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), working through the National Science and Technology Council, must set up or name an interagency working group. Its job is to help federal research agencies work together to cut down on sex-based and sexual harassment involving people who work on federal research awards. The group must coordinate with the STEM inclusion working group set up under section 6626 and with the Safe Inclusive Research Environments Subcommittee, and talk with representatives from every federal research agency, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The working group must: 1. Within 90 days of August 9, 2022, send a list of each federal research agency's policies, procedures, and resources for preventing and responding to harassment reports to five named congressional committees. 2. Within 6 months after that list is sent: (A) work with outside stakeholders to write one consistent set of policy guidelines for federal research agencies; and (B) send those committees a report containing the guidelines. 3. Encourage and check on agencies as they build policies based on those guidelines. 4. One year after the list is sent, and every five years after that, have the OSTP Director report to Congress on how well agencies are following the guidelines. 5. Update the guidelines whenever needed. (b) Requirements: When writing the guidelines under (a)(2), the OSTP Director must, as much as practical, include rules that: 1. Require recipients of research money to send reports to their funding agency about: (A) any decision to start a formal investigation of sex-based or sexual harassment — including bullying, retaliation, or a hostile environment — by or against people working on the award; (B) any disciplinary action taken against such people under organizational rules, laws, regulations, or executive orders that affects their ability to do the award's work; (C) how many investigations found no wrongdoing; and (D) findings that harassment did happen, including the final outcome after all appeals, any court finding of a sex crime, or any other discipline given. 2. Require that these reports be shared, updated, and kept on file with the relevant federal agencies once a year and whenever an agency asks. 3. Keep the reporting policies and procedures consistent across federal agencies. 4. FERPA: Make sure the guidelines follow the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (section 1232g of title 20). 5. Privacy protections: Make sure the guidelines (A) don't violate the privacy of people named in these reports, and (B) don't force recipients to send interim reports. (c) Considerations: In writing the (a)(2) guidelines, the OSTP Director must consider requiring or encouraging: 1. Recipients to regularly check their own workplace climate, such as through surveys, focus groups, or exit interviews. 2. Recipients to publish the results of those checks online, broken down by sex and, where practical, race, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation — without revealing anyone's identity. 3. Recipients to publish, once a year, how many harassment reports their institution received. 4. Recipients to keep reviewing and improving their harassment policies and responses. 5. Every entity applying for a research award to certify that it has a code of conduct for a healthy workplace, posted on its public website. 6. Every recipient and agency to have a system in place to help people who were harassed, including helping them return to work. 7. Recipients to build a workplace culture that won't tolerate harassment and that values diversity and inclusion. (d) Federal research agency implementation: Within 270 days of getting the guidelines from (a)(2), every federal research agency must: 1. Create or keep, and put into practice, harassment policies that match the guidelines and protect the privacy of everyone involved in a report or investigation as much as practical. 2. Widely share those policies with people who currently get, or might apply for, research awards from that agency.