By Jackie Gharapour Wernz & Holly McIntush

The long awaited proposed Title IX regulation from the Biden administration’s U.S. Department of Education was released today, on the 50^th anniversary of Title IX. You can find the proposed rule here. As expected, the proposed rule includes provisions that, if they become law, would drastically change the process schools, colleges, and universities use to address Title IX sexual harassment reports. The current process is from the Trump administration’s Title IX rule, which has been in effect for less than two years. Among other things, the proposed rule would grant explicit legal protections to LGBTQI+ students, replace the “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” definition for a hostile environment with a lower “severe or pervasive” standard, and remove the requirement that a formal complaint be signed or filed to initiate the complaint process.

As always, Thompson & Horton’s deep bench of Title IX attorneys will keep you up to date on the proposed rule and what it means for your educational institution.

• Make sure to subscribe to our blog here at www.titleIXtips.com for analysis in the weeks to come.
• We will briefly begin our discussion of the new rule during our Title IX webinar today at 1 p.m. Central, “Title IX: The First 50 Years.”
• We will provide a more complete analysis during a webinar next Thursday, June 30, 2022 at 1 p.m. Central, “The New Title IX … Again: What You Should Know Now About the 2022 Proposed Title IX Rule.” The webinar on the proposed rule will take the place of our previously scheduled webinar, “Looking Forward: What Might the Next 50 Years Bring?”.

If you are already registered for our Title IX webinar series, your links will allow you to access these upcoming webinars. You can register for the webinars here.

Keep in mind that the proposed rule does not change the law immediately. There will be a 60 day comment period, followed by months of review by the Department before it issues a final regulation. Until then, schools, colleges, and universities must continue to use the 2020 Title IX rules, including the grievance process requirements for responding to reports and formal complaints of Title IX sexual harassment. Because there is virtually no chance that the new Title IX rules will be finalized before the end of the coming academic year (2022-2023), your educational institution should be planning training on the 2020 Title IX rules for administrators this coming school year. Please contact your Thompson & Horton attorney or titleIX@thlaw.com to schedule training for your employees for the summer and the fall.