Office for Civil Rights fielded more Title IX complaints than any other kind in fiscal 2022
Naaz Modan
May 1, 2023
Dive Brief:
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights received 18,804 complaints in fiscal year 2022 — the most in its history and 12% higher than the previous record high of 16,720 complaints in 2016, according to the office’s annual report released Monday.
Although the greatest share of complaints — 9,498 complaints, or 48% of the total — were related to Title IX sex discrimination, 7,339 of those were filed by one person. That skewed the usual trend of disability complaints taking the top spot.
As a result, disability complaints came in at the second-highest portion of complaints for 2022, at 6,467, or 32% of complaints. The third-most common complaints related to race, color or national origin, at 17% or 3,239 total.
Dive Insight:
With sex discrimination accounting for about half of OCR complaints, the most common area for those allegations to occur concerned athletics, at 4,387 complaints. The Education Department did not respond to a request Monday for how many complaints were at K-12 schools versus colleges.
