On May 1, 2023, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) released its annual report for Fiscal Year 2022. The FY 2022 report focused on civil rights complaints, proactive compliance reviews, technical assistance presentations, and...more
[Warning: This article does not reference viruses, vaccines, or mask-wearing.] The education world is in a state of flux, legally speaking. Any day now, the U.S. Supreme Court will further opine on the extent to which the...more
On May 6, 2020, the United States Department of Education issued its long-awaited Final Regulations (the “Regulations”) that focus on Title IX protections for victims of sexual misconduct. The new regulations impose a number...more
After a lengthy notice and comment process and much anticipation, new Title IX regulations were issued by the U.S. Department of Education on May 6, 2020. The regulations comprise approximately 25 pages, and the preamble to...more
When the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion several weeks ago upholding a public school district’s policy allowing transgender students to use facilities that match their gender identity, it was just the latest...more
Over eight years after the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ [“OCR”] issued its April 4, 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter on campus sexual assaults, the torrent of lawsuits continues, filed...more
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) and its corresponding regulations prohibit sex discrimination in education programs or activities conducted by educational institutions that receive federal financial...more
• California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the state legislature’s attempt to codify previously issued Title IX guidance. • A similar bill, introduced this month in the U.S. House of Representatives, has not yet received the...more
On September 22, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague Letter withdrawing the statements of policy and guidance reflected in two key documents about Title IX and sexual violence...more
On September 22, 2017, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) rescinded its April 4, 2011 Dear Colleague Letter regarding sexual assault and its April 29, 2014 Questions and Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence.1 This is...more
On September 22, 2017, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (the OCR) issued a new Dear Colleague Letter officially withdrawing the April 4, 2011 Dear Colleague Letter on Sexual Violence and the April 29,...more
On Friday, September 22, 2017, the U.S. Department of Education ("the Department") issued new interim guidance on sexual misconduct under Title IX. The guidance is in advance of rulemaking by the Department on Title IX...more
Late last week, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced the intention of the Department of Education to overhaul the way it addressed sexual misconduct on college and university campuses, as well as in K-12 schools. As...more
On September 22, 2017, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”) withdrew the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter (“DCL”) and the 2014 Questions and Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence (“Q&A”) guidance...more
Following Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ Sept. 7 speech critical of the Obama administration’s prescriptive and adversarial guidance on Title IX, we predicted in a client alert that the current administration would formally...more
On September 7, 2017, Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, announced that the United States Department of Education intended to revisit the “Dear Colleague” letter that the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, or “OCR,”...more
The Department of Education Office for Civil Rights has suggested that it is considering significant changes to or rescission of the April 4, 2011, Dear Colleague Letter on schools’ obligations to respond to sexual misconduct...more
It is unusual for a dissenting opinion to be more noteworthy than the majority’s holding, yet that is the case in Plummer v. University of Houston, a decision recently handed down by the United States Court of Appeals for the...more
Published reports indicate that President Trump’s proposed budget includes what is approximately a fifty percent reduction in the prior fiscal year’s funding for the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil...more
On February 22, the U.S. Department of Education issued its first Dear Colleague Letter guidance of the new administration, rescinding the transgender rights guidance that the Obama administration issued last summer. The...more
In May 2016, the Obama Administration’s U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague letter directing schools to recognize and treat...more
On February 22, 2017, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice ("Departments") withdrew statements of policy and guidance on transgender students and their use of school restrooms and locker rooms that were a...more
In the latest chapter in the saga of evolving legal rights and protections for transgender students, on Feb. 22, the Departments of Justice and Education issued a joint “Dear Colleague Letter” that rescinded their prior...more
Schools No Longer Face Federal Requirement To Permit Transgender Students To Access Restrooms Corresponding With Their Gender Identities - Late yesterday, the Trump administration revoked Obama-era federal guidelines...more