Title IX is a federal civil rights law that protects students from sexual discrimination and misconduct in the school environment. Betsy DeVos, the education secretary of the United States, is planning to put forth new guidelines and rules to the Title IX which may greatly affect the victims of these instances.
These new rules haven’t been officially proposed but there has been information released through the New York Times and other reputable news sources. According to the New York Times, the proposed rules “narrow the definition of sexual harassment, hold schools accountable only for formal complaints filed through proper authorities and for conduct said to have occured on their campuses.” If passed, this policy change is unfair to victims of sexually involved incidents and will prevent victims from confronting their attackers and following through with their cases.
With these new guidelines, if an act of sexual misconduct or harassment occurs at a fraternity party or off-campus housing, the university does not have to be accountable. In turn, the accuser and accused can by definition, take the same classes with no repercussions. Victims shouldn’t have to go to class with their attacker just because technically, it didn’t happen on campus property. The student should be the priority and if this affects them off campus it is still going to affect them on campus, period.
This will also change the definition of sexual harassment to mean, “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person access to the school’s education program or activity.” This definition does not explain the definition of severe and pervasive since each victims definition of severe can be different. This could mean that a student experiencing what is defined as a minor harassment case will not qualify for these protections. Title IX is supposed to protect all students in all of these situations, not just pick the most severe cases and basically ignore the rest. What if these seemingly minor cases turn serious and the university wasn’t there to protect those students before the situation escalated because of this new definition?
The most shocking part of the policy change involves the court proceedings and formalities of these cases. The New York Times reported that institutions will “only be held legally responsible for investigating formal complaints and responding to reports that school officials have ‘actual knowledge’ of happening.”
It is hard enough for victims of these crimes to step forward about their experience, now they have to file a formal complaint for the victim to be heard. Even worse, the chances that a school official has actual knowledge of sexual harassment is low. Most of these situations do not happen in the classroom setting and even if they do, it is in such a public setting that it can be easily deterred from occuring.
These new rules also encourage universities to use mediation strategies to reach resolutions and allow both parties to cross-examine each other. Mediations are a great option if both parties are trying to salvage a relationship, professional or personal, but that’s not usually the case in these instances. Victims don’t want any further contact with their attackers. Plus, why would they want their attacker or their attackers lawyer cross-examining their claims of sexual harassment or assault? That defeats the whole purpose of the investigation into the claims and puts the victims in an extremely uncomfortable and traumatic position than these situations can already be on their own.
Luckily, these rules have not been officially proposed yet and there is a 60 day comment period where the public can review and provide feedback for consideration to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is the branch of the Department of Education that enforces these rules.
No matter the outcome of this policy, NSU plans to go above and beyond for students. According to Laura Bennet, NSU’s Title IX Coordinator, “compliance with federal law is a floor, not a ceiling”. Even though NSU students are protected, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about these new guidelines. This will affect colleges across the United States and all college students should stand together to prevent this policy from silencing victims.
