Title IX expansions provoke mixed responses at USC

This article contains mentions of sexual misconduct and harassment.

Since August 2020, there has existed a required reality for victims of sexual misconduct that have filed a Title IX violation case against their abuser — they must undergo a live, recorded hearing to describe what happened to them.

This requirement was one part of Trump administration-implemented guidelines on the landmark civil rights legislation that many have claimed weakened students’ willingness to report misconduct complaints. Yet, following the recent 50th anniversary of the landmark civil rights legislation, the Biden administration has proposed new changes to the law aimed at providing more clear rules to help schools combat sex discrimination and “restore vital protections for students in our nation’s schools which were eroded by controversial regulations implemented during the previous Administration,” including on the live hearing process.

These changes include reversing narrow wording in the regulations implemented by the Department of Education under Trump’s administration, like on the definition of sexual harassment: In 2020, the administration’s new regulations defined it as “any unwelcome conduct that a reasonable person would find so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person equal educational access” — wording that legally excepted instances of stalking, domestic violence, dating violence or sexual assault. 

“I just think about how I would feel if the worst thing that happened to me was recorded … [and] I had to sit with the people that may have been responsible for the event, and that was the only way to tell the story, as opposed to having some privacy,” said Lavonna Blair Lewis, associate dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and teaching professor at the Sol Price School of Public Policy.

When Lewis was asked about whether the proposed regulations help to move the live hearing process in a better direction, she said that the possibility was there.

“For me, the big issue has to be, ‘Are we doing what we can such that we can get people to honestly share what’s happened to them without having to be retraumatized to do that?’” she said. “That is what I would hope would happen, that people feel like talking about what’s happened to them, [in a way that] doesn’t put a target on their back.”

Another crucial change in the Department of Education’s guidelines is the expansion of Title IX guidelines to include discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, aimed at clarifying protections for the LGBTQIA student population in both the academic, activity and athletic educational environment. 

Students, including Navya Singh, a junior majoring in business administration and member of the club water polo team, lauded the expansion of the Title IX protections and noted that the civil rights law is often in the back of her mind as she plays and interacts with her teammates.

“It makes me feel like I have more trust in the American administration and leadership,” Singh said. “I feel like this is a great step forward, especially for people who identify with specific [social] groups.”

Yet not all within the USC community view the proposed changes to Title IX through a positive lens. In an earlier interview with the Daily Trojan July 22 regarding Title IX, former USC athletics administrator Barbara Hedges cited a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Biden’s Title IX Rewrite is an Assault on Women’s Rights” that had alerted her to the administration’s proposals. This article describes the Department of Education’s proposed amendments as an “illegal rewrite” of federal law that will “erase women and undermine constitutional liberties” — including a portion that provides sharp criticism into the inclusion of transgender women into female athletic teams and spaces.

Hedges said she wants to “understand the thinking” behind the proposed legislation.

“I need to do my own research … Why they need to overhaul [or even think about] Title IX is beyond me,” said Hedges in July, on being “alarmed” by her discovery of the changes. “It’s something that could have a very negative effect on opportunities for women, particularly in athletics.”

Hedges also raised a concern, as mentioned in the WSJ op-ed, about the power of government agencies to “rewrite legislation that had been passed and signed by the President.” Yet, many checks and balances exist to prevent bureaucratic agencies from producing guidelines that are unconstitutional.

This includes a mandatory 60-day public comment period, in which any member of the public can submit feedback, data, arguments or views to a government agency when they publish new proposals in the Federal Register — the government’s daily journal that is available to the public. All relevant matters and comments about new regulations must be responded to by the agency in some form. Additionally, the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 provides the federal court system with standards for judicial review if an agency action provides adverse effects or is unconstitutional.

In her interview with the Daily Trojan, Lewis encouraged students and any individual with an opinion on an agency’s regulations to submit their comments on proposed laws and to start with government sources first when it comes to policy opinions.

“My philosophy is always, ‘I can’t complain about it if I didn’t try to do something about it,’” Lewis said. “It’s easy to throw stones after the fact, but one has to ask themselves, when I was given the opportunity, did I try to get something different?”