OPINION
Biden’s Title IX delay endangers students
Crucial changes to the landmark law have been pushed back to October.
By KATE MCQUARRIE
This article contains mentions of sexual violence and suicide.
After three long years of waiting, President Biden’s updates to Title IX have been pushed back again.
With a “final action” date set for May 2023, the updated regulations were expected to be released by the end of May and implemented this school year, allowing colleges and universities the summer to update their Title IX offices and procedures.
Yet on May 26, the Department of Education released a blog post announcing the delay of these regulations until October 2023, citing the overwhelming number of public comments on the proposed rule in July 2022 as a main reason for the delay.
“The Department received more than 240,000 public comments on the proposed rule — nearly twice as many comments as the Department received during its last rulemaking on Title IX. Carefully considering and reviewing these comments takes time, and is essential to ensuring the final rule is enduring,” the blog post said.
But pushing back the release could not come at a worse time: the period between orientation and Thanksgiving break on college campuses is known as the “red zone.” It has earned this pejorative because it is the time period when students are most vulnerable to sexual assault, making it the most crucial time for students to have the protection of the law.
Former President Trump’s changes to the regulations imposed unjust standards as minimum requirements for Title IX to investigate sexual assault. Additionally, new, strict standards for what qualifies as sexual harassment mean that many students cannot even find recourse for their experiences at all.
Further, they stipulated that universities were no longer mandated to conduct investigations of off-campus assaults — a particularly significant obstacle for victims with the recent disaffiliation of many of USC’s fraternities.
The Biden administration’s new rules were set to restore those protections once again, but it looks like it may be too little, too late for freshmen this fall.
More than half of campus assaults happen in the first semester of school, with freshman women being the most at-risk population. Freshmen, many of whom are living on their own for the first time, are navigating a new physical environment and, more importantly, a new social one.
A study by the Association of American Universities showed that rates of assault declined from 16.1% for freshman women to 11.3% for seniors. A 5% change may not seem like much, but at USC that accounts for over 135 students, marking freshmen as a significantly more vulnerable population.
With USC regularly ranked within the top party school lists in America, many new students look forward to the partying that is an integral part of USC’s culture. A return to campus inevitably means more social events, especially during football season — where tailgating is almost more important to students than the games themselves.
But for new students, partying comes with an added risk. While older students might have a stronger network of friends they trust to watch out for each other at parties and more knowledge of USC’s support services, freshmen are often fending for themselves.
The red zone is not just about an increase in parties and drinking around campus but also the isolation that makes new students more susceptible to being preyed on. When your most trusted confidante is a roommate you’ve really only known for a few weeks, it can be hard to see the difference between a potential predator and just another new friend.
Pushing back the release and implementation of new Title IX regulations may not seem like a big deal — what’s another few months when we have been waiting for three years already? But these few months have the capability to irrevocably change people’s lives.
In addition to restoring and strengthening the pre-Trump protections of Title IX for victims of sexual assault, Biden’s updated regulations will expand the definition of discrimination “on the basis of sex” to include gender identity.
With over 500 anti-trans bills proposed thus far in 2023, the political and social climate has never been worse for transgender people. Between these laws and a general rise in anti-trans sentiment and violence over the last few years, transgender and non-binary students need to be included under the protections of Title IX now more than ever.
A 2019 report from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network found that 86.3% of LGBTQIA+ students were subjected to harassment or assault based on their identity and that 58.3% were sexually harassed. With the current Title IX rules limiting the definition of harassment and providing no protections based on gender identity, transgender students are increasingly at risk.
Among specifically transgender and gender nonconforming students, the Association of American Universities found that 65.1% of those students reported experiencing harassment since beginning school.
With sexual assault and harassment comes increased risks of depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicidal thoughts. For transgender students, many of whom already experience those higher levels of risk simply by being themselves in a world that refuses to accept them, the combination can literally be deadly.
The Trevor Project’s 2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People reports that 56% of transgender men, 48% of transgender women and 48% of nonbinary people contemplated suicide this year. Rates of depression and anxiety were even higher, reaching up to 76% for some populations. And in the last year alone, 27% of transgender and nonbinary young people have been physically threatened or harmed.
Unlike the transphobic community, the red zone does not discriminate, and transgender students will have to face this vulnerable time without adequate protections under Title IX.
Every single one of these statistics represents an actual person whose life can and will be changed forever this fall, who needs the support of their universities behind them. It doesn’t matter how well the Department of Education addresses all the comments on its proposed rulings if they don’t address the actual problem of protecting students until after it’s too late.
Razan Asmar contributed to this report.
