Title IX Insights

Title IX Fundamentals and Investigation Techniques

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By: Franczek P.C.

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Amy Dickerson
Jackie Gharapour Wernz
Emily Tulloch

Latest from Title IX Insights

The confusing messages coming from the U.S. Department of Education continue. We still await more information on if/when a final version of the pending Title IX regulations will be released. Those regulations have been almost universally described as rolling back Federal regulatory oversight in the Title IX realm for schools, colleges, and universities. Yet today, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced a “New Civil Rights Initiative to Combat Sexual Assault in K-12 Public Schools” that…
With guest editor Kendra Yoch As an Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigator, I was surprised by the number of times I saw the same issues again and again in Title IX sexual misconduct investigations. Nowhere was this more evident than with confidentiality issues. Three of the most common repeat confidentiality concerns in Title IX investigations are the failure to adequately describe the impact confidentiality may have on an institution’s investigation, misunderstandings about the information…
With Guest Authors Jennifer Smith and Kendra Yoch Litigants challenging the opening of women’s restrooms and locker rooms in schools to transgender females have roundly been defeated. While the Supreme Court could always change the trend, cases like Whitaker v. Kenosha Unified School District and Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board  show that it is increasingly settled that students and employees must have access to facilities consistent with their gender identities. Activist litigants, however, such…
The U.S. Department of Education has created a “new, proactive” civil rights compliance center within its Office for Civil Rights. The Department describes the Outreach, Prevention, Education and Non-discrimination, or OPEN, Center as an effort to “support[ ] school districts, colleges, and those closest to students” by providing educational institutions “technical assistance to help them come into compliance with federal civil rights laws prior to the filing of a complaint.” Yet OCR retains the right to…
I was honored to speak recently at the Illinois Association of School Personnel Administrators (IASPA) Thirteenth Annual Conference on January 23, 2020. Franczek P.C. is a longtime, proud sponsor of IASPA and was a Silver Sponsor of this year’s conference. I saw many familiar faces in the room and throughout the conference center.  My topic–Title IX Fundamentals for Personnel Administrators–is always a hot one, because for many in human resources Title IX is an afterthought until…
We all know how important it is for responsible employees in educational institutions to report up the chain when they learn of sexual misconduct against a student. But the stakes for noncompliance just grew in Texas, where lawmakers recently passed legislation allowing jail time in addition to institutional penalties for responsible employees who fail to report as required by law. It seems like a good reason for a refresher on the rules for responsible…
The Title IX world is abuzz with expectation about the release of regulations from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The general consensus is that even if the Department makes some changes based on the 100,000+ comments it received on the proposed rules, any final rules released will roll back many Obama-era protections for students reporting sexual misconduct. Yet, even as the Department continues with its plans to lighten the load on…
My calendar has been full these past weeks with administrator trainings on Title IX, and one of the issues repeatedly raised is how age and maturity impact the analysis of whether conduct is sexual in nature. A recent report from Maryland provides a good opportunity to discuss this issue. Whether you are a K-12 or higher education administrator, this case is an important reminder of how age and maturity level come into play in student-on-student…
Readers of the blog know that I recently presented at the ATIXA West Coast Conference in San Francisco, California. My presentation was on Title IX and employee rights—an issue I realized when I worked at OCR that many institutions were not thinking about as much as they should. It was a great experience to share my thoughts on the subject with a room full of engaged Title IX and HR administrators from K-12 and higher…
Last week, at an excellent and well-attended ATIXA conference at which I had the honor of speaking, ATIXA leadership reported hearing hints that the U.S. Department of Education intends to drop the new Title IX regulations at or near Thanksgiving. Why would they possibly do that? Because, as some speculate, we Americans are notoriously inattentive when we are stuffed with turkey and enjoying the company of our family and friends. If you’re going to release…