A Year After the February 14, 2025 USDOE Dear Colleague Letter and Title VI Coordinator Best Practice Issues
Executive Order Breakdown: President Trump's Vision for College Sports and NIL Reform — Highway to NIL Podcast
Shout Outs and Rants: Episode 153, The CW 25 Edition
Rescission of DOE Guidance — Highway to NIL Podcast
DOE Guidance and DOJ Statement of Interest — Highway to NIL Podcast
Title IX — Highway to NIL Podcast
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: Recent Developments Affecting Student Loan Origination and Servicing
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Gavels & Gowns - Responding to Borrower Defense to Repayment Applications
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision Invalidating the Biden Administration’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan and its Potential Legal Repercussions
A Deep Dive into the Debate Over Federal Student Loan Forgiveness
Compliance Perspectives: Changes to Title IX
New Title IX Regulations: A Seismic Shift During a Pandemic (Webinar Recording)
Investigating Sexual Misconduct in High Education: Potential Pitfalls During Title IX Investigations and How to Avoid Them
Congressman: My Plan Would Reduce Student Loan Defaults: Video
Overview On January 22, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education (the "Department") announced its intent to establish the Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization negotiated rulemaking committee (the "Committee") to develop...more
The U.S. Department of Education, on Jan. 21, 2026, withdrew its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit aimed at defending its anti-DEI Dear Colleague Letter issued last year. The Trump Administration’s...more
If you’ve ever had a parent or visitor arrive at your school event with a dog, you’ve probably found yourself asking: What are my legal responsibilities? What questions am I allowed to ask? How do I balance access, safety,...more
Key Takeaways: President Trump made higher education a focus of his second term, and his administration has targeted colleges and universities in various spaces, including Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Title VI, Title...more
As civil rights law practitioners, we often find ourselves tracing the edges of complex issues, trying to determine where protected expression ends and discriminatory conduct begins. Nowhere is this more evident than in the...more
Higher Education continues to be targeted by the Administration’s enforcement efforts to ensure compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws. Employment and admissions practices are subject to increased scrutiny by...more
It is wise for employers to carefully re-evaluate employee training materials on an annual basis, as well as following court decisions and new employment legislation. This may be such a time, given a recent decision from the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently ruled that mandatory anti-bias training can support a claim for a racially hostile work environment if it repeatedly portrays a specific race in negative or...more
According to public reporting, the White House recently proposed a Compact for Academic Excellence in Education (“Compact”) to nine universities, promising a closer relationship with the White House, preferential access to...more
When a female student and her supporters publicly label a male student a “rapist” and orchestrate his exclusion from university activities, that is sex-based harassment, and a university can be held liable under Title IX for...more
On October 1, 2025, according to external reporting by The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, and others, the White House sent a letter inviting nine universities to enter into an accompanying nine-page Compact for...more
Overview - On August 28, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights ("OCR") announced that it found Denver Public Schools in violation of Title IX for converting a sex-separated multi-stall girls'...more
Following the vacatur of the Department of Education’s anti-DEI guidance, institutions receiving federal education funds may want to reevaluate compliance frameworks, policy positions, and academic governance under clarified...more
What began with the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) February 2025 Dear Colleague Letter has now unraveled into injunctions, stays, and ultimately a ruling that voided the guidance and its certification requirements...more
Law Professor Ramsi Woodcock was suspended from teaching at the University of Kentucky (UK) and barred from campus for posting a “Petition for Military Action Against Israel” on a website he manages. Eli Capilouto, president...more
On July 29, 2025, the U.S. attorney general released a new memorandum providing guidance on the application of federal antidiscrimination laws for recipients of federal funding—including private and public colleges and...more
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is raising the stakes with a broad new initiative targeting what it calls “illegal DEI.” In a May 19, 2025 internal memorandum, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche outlines a Civil Rights...more
On April 23, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order called “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education” along with a fact sheet about the EO and six other EOs relating to education....more
The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has declined to sign a certification form issued by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), which asked all state education agencies to affirm compliance with federal...more
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) took another step forward last week to ensure that K-12 school districts across the country are complying with the administration’s directives on civil rights and antidiscrimination...more
On April 3, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued a press release announcing the ED sent certification letters to state commissions that oversee K-12 State Education Agencies (SEAs), charging SEAs with the...more
Real World Impact: In light of recent government actions directed at ensuring educational institutions protect their faculty and staff, as well as students, from antisemitism, such employers should ensure they are familiar...more
Anti-discrimination statutes protect against "deliberate indifference" to conditions establishing a hostile environment of antisemitic violence and harassment. But those statutes cannot be used to censor legitimate speech...more
We reported last week that the pace of executive orders coming from the new presidential administration had begun to slow. While, overall, the rate does still appear to be slowing, this week has been a notable one....more
Starting today, the U.S. Department of Education will crack down on “overt and covert racial discrimination” in educational institutions receiving federal funding, according to a February 14 “Dear Colleague” letter issued by...more