Title IX TipsTitle IX Expertise and Insight
Category: 2020 Regulations
On October 8, 2021, the U.S. Department of Education issued a blog post, “Our Commitment to Education Environments Free from Sex-Based Harassment, Including Sexual Violence.” The blog post comes on the heels of meetings between the administration and at least one advocacy group asking the administration to move more quickly on new Title IX regulations. OCR declined, standing by its plan to issue new proposed regulations in May 2022.
We have been living with the 2020 Title IX regulations for well over a year, but some basics continue to trip us up. One of the biggest for primary and secondary schools is helping building-level administrators remember to hit the brakes when they learn of sex-based misconduct. Rushing to collect statements, impose consequences (even temporary ones), and collect other evidence could lead to a Title IX violation if the conduct ends up being covered by the law. For this reason, in my opinion, if a school system does one thing this fall to address Title IX, training building-level admins and employees to stop, drop, and call the Title IX office as soon as they learn of any conduct based on sex.
A little over a month ago, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said it would no longer enforce a controversial portion of the 2020 Title IX rules. The “suppression clause” is a ban on reliance on statements by a party or witness who does not submit to cross-examination in higher education Title IX sexual harassment hearings. The 2020 Title IX regulations require that higher education decision-makers ignore all statements by any party or witness who refuses to answer even one relevant question during the required hearing for Title IX sexual harassment complaints. The rules leave room for K-12 decision-makers to decide whether to reject all statements by a party or witness who refuses to answer written cross-examination questions used in elementary and secondary school Title IX processes. After a Massachusetts Federal trial court struck down…