The University of Houston received 1,509 sexual misconduct reports in recent years but formally investigated only 2 percent of them, while Rice University logged 558 reports and formally investigated 6 percent, and Texas Southern University received 138 reports with a 7 percent formal-investigation rate. In KHOU 11's 2023–2026 data, UH reported zero students disciplined under the law, while Rice disciplined seven students and TSU disciplined two. UH had at least one disciplinary sanction in an earlier SB 212 reporting period.
Those figures come from a review by KHOU 11, which examined three years of Senate Bill 212 data, from 2023 through 2026, at Houston's three largest universities with on-campus housing. The law requires all university employees in Texas to report suspected sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking, and it took effect in 2020, years before the law became a national flashpoint amid the Cornell protests. Texas law requires every university to post its report and investigation numbers online, a mandate state lawmakers imposed specifically so outcomes could not stay hidden.
State Sen. Joan Huffman, who championed the legislation, said the goal was accountability. “The days when an outcry went unheard or covered up at an institution of higher education are over,” Huffman said, according to KHOU 11's reporting.
Why So Few Reports Become Investigations
UH has nearly 50,000 students, while Rice and TSU each have student populations of around 9,000, according to the KHOU 11 report. The university told KHOU 11 that every report its Title IX Coordinator receives undergoes a preliminary investigation, a process distinct from the formal investigation that follows only once a formal complaint is filed. UH's published SB 212 data describes a formal investigation as one indicating a formal complaint was filed, followed by a full investigation and disciplinary process if applicable.
A UH spokesperson told KHOU 11 that once reports not meeting federal Title IX criteria are excluded, the university formally investigated 28 percent of the remaining allegations, and that its six-year average showed 2.7 percent of cases proceeding to formal disciplinary charges. UH said every report is still investigated and evaluated to determine whether an accused person can be identified and whether sufficient information exists for formal charges, and the university said it provides trauma-informed support services across university life during and after initial investigations.
That gap between raw report counts and formal investigations traces partly to how Title IX itself is structured. Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education programs receiving federal financial assistance, but its formal-investigation process differs from Texas's broader reporting requirements, according to KHOU 11. A formal Title IX investigation requires the alleged victim to come forward, meaning anonymous complaints do not qualify; it requires the accused to be an identified student or employee; and it generally requires the misconduct to have occurred on university property, since off-campus conduct generally does not qualify.
Breaking Down UH's Mandatory Reports
UH's own data, provided to the station, breaks down why so many mandatory employee reports never advance. The university said 43.4 percent of cases involved either no university-affiliated respondent or an unidentified responsible party, and 47 percent involved cases with missing necessary information — including 18.8 percent with confidential complainants and 28.2 percent where other necessary information was missing. Another 5.3 percent of cases were closed through other measures or administrative decisions, and 1.6 percent involved complainants who officially requested no further investigation.
UH said its published mandatory-report data represents some but not all investigations, since reports also come directly from impacted individuals and their contacts or from external parties. The university's published data covers completed investigations from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2026, the school said. Separately, UH's University of Houston-Downtown campus lists similar reasons a disciplinary process may not begin, including an unknown or unaffiliated respondent or a complainant's request that the university not investigate further.
Texas law requires higher education professionals to report possible sexual misconduct unless they work in a legally confidential role, such as a doctor, mental health counselor or pastor, KHOU 11 reported. Rice University declined to comment on its SB 212 reporting data when the station sought comment, while Texas Southern University said formal Title IX investigations do not represent all reports handled through university processes.
A Former Title IX Coordinator's Perspective
Mikiba Morehead, a former university administrator and Title IX coordinator who now consults universities on student conduct issues, told KHOU 11 that reporting data alone does not accurately indicate what is happening on campuses. She said Title IX coordinators cannot proceed with formal investigations when federal requirements go unmet, regardless of how serious an underlying complaint might be. Morehead added that many of her colleagues feel they are in a no-win situation, caught between public pressure for high investigation numbers and legal constraints that limit which cases can formally proceed.
A qualitative study of 26 students at one Texas public university, published via Springer, found limited awareness of SB 212 among students, predominantly negative attitudes toward the law, and concern that mandatory reporting might deter students from disclosing sexual misconduct in the first place.
Separate data sources complicate direct comparisons across schools. A CBS Austin analysis of 60-day crime logs at UT Austin, Texas A&M, Texas State, Texas Tech and UH's main campus found that UH used the term “forcible sex” instead of “rape” in its Annual Security Report classifications, while Texas A&M's security reports recorded 47 rape cases in 2023, 25 in 2024, and 26 in 2025. Those Clery Act crime-log figures measure something different from SB 212 administrative report counts, and the two should not be read as interchangeable.
Rice's own climate survey data, drawn from a 2019 campus-wide poll of 6,629 enrolled students with a 68.4 percent response rate, found that 9.3 percent of students reported experiencing at least one incident of nonconsensual sexual contact since enrolling, according to a report hosted by Rice's Title IX office. That same year, Rice's president and undergraduate dean apologized to a former student over the university's handling of her sexual-assault case, according to the Houston Chronicle, saying the school failed to realize how its decisions would affect her and failed to keep her informed throughout the process.
