Civil Rights Compliance Blog

The Department of Education (ED) has signaled that the previous Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on transgender participation in intercollegiate athletics will not be included in the coming new Title IX regulations, but it remains an open question as to whether or not such a ban by leagues, conferences, or state legislatures will violate Title IX...

Thanks to everyone who attended the joint system civil rights meeting this past Thursday. The materials from the meeting can be found at this link. The feedback we have received so far seems to indicate the material was well received, and that our explanation of the new process map seemed to make sense to people....

For the past several months, we’ve been keeping people updated most through emails, video calls, and listservs, but this seemed like a great time to provide an overview of our current activities and plans all in one place. Progress on Civil Rights Regulations As you likely know by now, the Department of Education (ED) has...

Over the past several days we have realigned our website to implement a parent site for the System Ethics and Compliance Office (SECO), for which civil rights compliance pages are now a sub-section. Please allow us a few more days to update all of the links and menus to conform to the new structure. The following...

As you likely know we have been awaiting final Title IX regulations from the Department of Education, which were supposed to be released this month. At present, this is highly unlikely, as the regulations have not yet been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for their required review, which generally takes anywhere from...

There has been some chatter in the profession (via ATIXA) this week about the potential for the Department of Education (ED) to miss the projected October release date for the new Title IX regulations. The basis for this speculation is that the final regulations have not yet been submitted to the Office of Management and...

For those A&M System members who are in need of training member-appointed advisors for the fall semester, we will be hosting a Webex training on Thursday, August 31 from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Registration is required (the program is free) and you may register at https://tamus.webex.com/weblink/register/r58fdef6986dfc46df5f41f55077f68b8. As with all training programs, passing a post-test...

The past three days saw approximately 50 A&M System personnel participate in the basic track of conflict resolution training, designed to allow staff to serve as Facilitators for the resolution of civil rights complaints. The online training (via Webex) covered the essentials of conflict, conflict styles, listening and questioning skills, the facilitation process, and the...

Registration is now open for Informal Resolution – Facilitation training. This training will be held Tuesday, July 11 through Thursday, July 13 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. each day. Each A&M System Member university is limited to 10 participants per member, while each member agency is limited to 5 participants per member. As a...

From NBC News: By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down affirmative action programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard in a major victory for conservative activists that is likely to end the systematic consideration of race in the admissions process. The court ruled that both programs violate the...

From Dora Lisa Zavala: As a reminder to information that was provided during our Investigator training earlier this month, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) goes into effect today (June 27, 2023). As such, the EEOC released an update to the “Know Your Rights” poster and has directed these go up beginning today. Links to...

Yesterday the U.S. Department of Education released a toolkit for “Creating Inclusive and Nondiscriminatory School Environments for LGBTQI+ Students.” This 15-page resource can be found at https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/lgbtqi-student-resources-toolkit-062023.pdf. While acknowledging new state law aimed at diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the federal requirements for nondiscrimination (for both Equal Opportunity and for Title IX) remain in place,...

Thanks to all of those who attended last week’s Basic Investigator Training at the Health Science Center in College Station. We would like to extend a huge thank you to Aubrey Craft for all of her work in setting up this training and making it operate so smoothly, as well as to extend our thanks...

On Friday, the Department of Education issued a blog post that updates the calendar on the issuance of new Title IX regulations. The release of the regulations is now set for October, which likely foreshadows a December or January implementation of a new System Regulation 08.01.01. The blog posting from ED is included at the...

We are opening registration for the Investigator Training that will be held June 6-8 at the Health Science Center. As a reminder, we are charging a $25 registration fee in order to help offset some expenses. This training is intended for anyone who will be conducting investigations of civil rights complaints under System Regulation 08.01.01. Additionally,...

As a result of the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) delay in releasing the new regulations on Title IX, we are now having to make adjustments to our training calendar for this summer. As of this morning, the following training calendar is in effect. Please bookmark this article, as it will be continually updated until...

As a follow-up to our joint civil rights officer meeting, I want to let everyone know that as of this morning (May 15th), the Department of Education still has not submitted the new Title IX regulations to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. We are now one week away from a decision...

Please see the graphic below for details. This training is not required for those advocates who are serving as confidential reporters in our civil rights process under the coming System Regulation 08.01.01, but is necessary if they are seeking to gain or maintain certification.

Dr. Andy Luptak is a retired Vice-President of Student Life at Concordia University Wisconsin, and I had the privilege to do some consulting work for Andy at Concordia, in addition to working with Andy as a part of the Association for Student Conduct Administration (ASCA). Andy had oversight of Title IX compliance while at Concordia,...

So when are the new Title IX regulations going to be released? That is the question on everyone’s mind of late, and despite the fact that we are only days away from the beginning of May, we have no more certainty than we did a few months ago. So here is what we know about...