House Members Want Rollback of Title IX Rules to Begin Soon
Alexis Gravely
September 14, 2021
Fifty-nine members of the House sent a letter Monday to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Suzanne Goldberg, urging the Department of Education to issue proposed changes to the Trump administration’s Title IX rules in October.
The department has said that proposed rule changes to the controversial regulations for Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 — put into place in 2020 under former secretary Betsy DeVos — won’t be released until May 2022. That’s far too long for students to wait, the representatives wrote.
“The final rule issued by the Trump Administration took 21 months to go into effect after the original changes were proposed,” the letter says. “If the Department uses a similar timeline, it is on track to not issue a final rule until February 2024. Simply put, students cannot wait much longer for the Department to restore their civil rights.”
The representatives also ask the department to issue a nonenforcement directive on parts of the Title IX rule to prevent colleges and universities from dismissing complaints under certain circumstances, keep survivors from enduring “unjust and hostile” investigations and hearings, and allow institutions to follow state or local laws that address sex-based harassment. They also urge an update to the department’s case processing manual so that survivors have more time to file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights.
