Essay On Title IX

The passing of Title IX has changed the world tremendously in multiple ways. As stated in a peer-reviewed

In 2011 the Department of Education released a “Dear Colleague” letter aimed at reminding educators of a fact established by the Supreme Court: under Title IX, schools much ensure survivors of sexual assault can stay in school and learn safely and notified colleges and university that the federal government was going to be aggressive on sexual misconduct. However, under DeVos’s new ruling the federal government is pulling back their investigation into sexual assault on college campuses.

“One in five women are sexually assaulted while in college” (Not Alone, 2014). In our class of twenty women that means that possibly five women have been sexually assaulted. Out of the five women that I stated could have been sexually assaulted they may have known the perpetrator and often will not report what has happened. According to the spring count of students completed by West Chester University, 9,211 of those students were females (“Headcount Enrollment”, 2014). If I go by the statistic mentioned earlier that one in five women is assaulted that would mean that 1,842 women have been sexually assaulted while enrolled at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Out of 1,842 possible assaults only four were reported last year. Two of which the victims knew prior to the assault. Rankin and Associates consulting conducted a Climate Assessment on West Chester University in September of 2010, a section of the results focused on sexual assault on students. According to the report seven people who reported a sexual assault to the university described their reactions to the universities response. Two students shared the way they felt the response was inappropriate or poor. One described that they felt the suspension for one semester was not an appropriate response to an admitted rape, that public safety lost the victims statement, judicial affairs painted the victim offender as innocent, and that the registrar protected the offender putting the victim in harm’s way and everyone

Only forty percent of women know what Title IX means or enforces, according to a survey given to twenty women of the Veteran Affairs clinic of Danville, Illinois (Women of the VA). This survey shows that even though Title IX has been a successfully enforced law, not everyone has heard about it or understands how it has impacted their lives and futures. Therefore, people have to ask, “What exactly is Title IX?” Amanda Ross Edwards writes, “ Title IX states: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance” (Edwards). This demonstrates how Title IX is a very important part of history, and has helped create and enforce equality among everyone, in all situations. Throughout history, the application of Title IX has helped improve the perception of women in many areas and has enabled women to be successful in their daily lives.

Then, in a 1984 decision, Grove City v. Bell, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted Title IX. In that ruling, the court said Title IX did not cover entire educational institutions - only those programs directly receiving federal funds. Other programs, such as athletics, that did not receive federal funds, were free to discriminate on the basis of gender.

The Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush administrations put a low priority on enforcing Title IX, and as a result, educational programs felt no real need to comply with the law (Anderson et al., 2006). When, in 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that Title IX was only applicable to the specific programs that directly received federal aid, athletic programs became legally exempt from compliance (Suggs, 2002). This situation lasted until 1988, when Congress, overriding a veto by President Reagan, enacted the Civil Rights Restoration Act. This law restored the broad interpretation of Title IX, in which Title IX applied to all programs or activities at institutions that received federal funds, whether or not a program was a direct recipient of these funds (U.S. Department of Justice,

Reynolds, Gerald. Letter to public; "Department of Education Closes Book on Title IX" (July 22, 2003)

     Title IX did much more than what the average mind thinks of when they hear the words: Title IX. I personally was interested in what people thought of when they heard this and did two simple interviews, one of my grandpa’s, a 73 year old man, and also interviewed my friend, Samm, who is a 19 year old female who just recently

Oversight of the implementation of TITLE IX was given to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which is based on protecting the civil rights within federally assisted education programs.

The lack of action and the incompetence of HEW was the primary obstacle in the way of thorough enforcement of Title IX . Inspired by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title IX took years for women to see the law enacted due to the disgraceful lack of enforcement by HEW. Experts show that the Education and Welfare did “three tenths of a complaint per person” failing to protect women to the best of its abilities for more than five years (NOW 71). The HEW did not make a priority to evaluate the claims of race or gender discrimination and after the passing of 1972 women who were excited about the passing of the law were met with one obstacle, the grace period. Feminist Susan Ware notes that The Department of Health, Education and Welfare appointed a “grace period of four to three years” for secondary institutions, meaning that some women did not see the law take hold until graduation (NOW 74). The grace period allowed schools to do as they please under the guise of evaluating results of complaints of discrimination which gave the law a sluggish start. During this period women flooded HEW with thousands of complaints by women facing gender discrimination on college campuses across the nation.

Violation of Title IX in any capacity can result in lawsuits filed by students and/or employees as well as massive fines, and, ultimately, loss of accreditation for the institution, particularly if investigations reveal any other unlawful activity. Loss of accreditation would result in the loss of all federal financial aid. Enrollment, retention, and faculty employment would plummet dramatically.

In 1975, the regulations about areas covered by Title IX, written by DHEW, were finalized (Ware, 2007). Relative to compliance, DHEW gave elementary schools a one-year grace period and high schools, colleges, and universities were given three years (Ware, 2007). This gave educational facilities time to look over their programs and develop strategies to overcome the problems discovered (Ware, 2007). In 1979, DHEW put into law the final guidelines for the schools regarding standards of compliance (Ware, 2007). The effect on the athletics departments was met with more dissention than other parts of the school curriculum, primarily because of football. The high costs of travel and equipment, and large rosters of both scholarship and walk-on players,

Sexual assault has been a huge issue for many years on college campuses and universities nation wide. As society has evolved, thoughts on sexual assault have also evolved, becoming more focused on the details of victim treatment than ever before. The topic of sexual assault is debatable and sparks many opinions on weather sexual assault on college campuses is becoming more frequent, or if there is just heightened awareness. Sexual assault can happen to anybody no matter the gender, race, religion, or age. Recently there have been many studies conducted on sexual violence on college campuses and universities producing ample amounts of statistics. One may argue that sexual assault rates are the same, but there are simply more studies and attention on sexual assault in the past 20 years. Gender roles have played a huge part in sexual assault on college campuses. Women and men have different expectations when it comes to roles in the relationship, men are often expected to make the first move. One may ask what causes a perpetrator to sexually harass somebody and think it is acceptable. There are various reasons as to why perpetrators do what they do, and may vary from person to person. Although sexual violence is a large problem for many colleges and universities, there is a surprising shortage of federal laws/rules and regulations regarding sexual assault. Colleges are able to develop their own personal policies and procedures for how they will prevent and deal with sexual

and advocacy. It should be noted that one of the Task Force’s observations is that the

A recent report states that one in five women will be raped during her time in college, and that of the assaults only twelve percent will be reported. Though President Obama’s speech on the nineteenth addresses more recent issues, it isn’t a new problem. Since Vice President Biden launched the Title IX Sexual