Title IX A major victory for organizers hinges on school compliance

This story is part of our monthly Campus Dispatch series. You can read the remaining stories in this series here.

After years of pressure from student organizers, the Biden administration only recently released a long-awaited update to regulations governing how schools interpret and enforce Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funds.

The provisions are monumental for survivors of sexual violence: The final rules make clear that students who have experienced sexual harassment, pregnant students and parents, and LGBTQ+ students (especially transgender, non-binary, and intersex students) have strong and comprehensive protection against discrimination. This move is monumental for survivors of sexual violence, as students of all ages and identities will now have critical protections against gender discrimination.

Even though I’m only in high school, I’ve been fighting for this moment for years. I organized strikes, lobbied local and federal officials, trained advocates across the country, and rallied before the Department of Education (DOE). You would think that after all this time, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief, but with states and agencies across the country announcing that they will not comply with updated Title IX regulations, I know my work is not done yet.

Just days after the DOE released updated Title IX regulations, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that his state would refuse to comply with them. He has since been joined by the governors of more than half the states, including Arkansas, Nebraska and Texas, to block the new rules from taking effect on August 1. Conservatives have focused on laws protecting LGBTQ+ students, which include protections against bullying and persistent, intentional gender reassignment of transgender students, as well as guidelines to ensure students can use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity.

Government officials’ refusal to comply with updated Title IX guidelines is rooted in bigotry and hatred. This will have a detrimental impact not only on LGBTQ+ students, but also on any member of a marginalized group who would receive increased protections and accommodations under the new legislation, including pregnant and parenting students, survivors of sexual violence and any young person experiencing harassment.

Unfortunately, Title IX noncompliance is not a new problem and is not solely the fault of governors and state-level offices. There has long been a devastatingly low level of compliance with current Title IX policies across the country – particularly at the high school level, where administrators lack information on how to implement Title IX guidelines and students do not receive sufficient education about their right to an education free from harm.

The lack of uniformity in the Title IX investigation process causes irreparable harm to survivors. Under Trump-era Title IX regulations, school districts failed to follow procedures, instead defaulting to siding with alleged perpetrators over survivors. Victims often do not receive an investigation timeline or explanation of the procedure, which creates a lack of trust between the investigator and the reporting student. Investigators often use victim-blaming language, which causes survivors to doubt themselves. A lack of transparency from administrators adds to student confusion: Some victims feel they must go to the police before reporting to an educational institution, which, especially for people of color, can be even more discouraging than going to school administrators.

In my work, I have encountered people who had to sit in the same classrooms and walk the same corridors as their perpetrators, which is wrong from both a legal and moral point of view. Young people – especially students in primary and middle schools like mine – bear the costs of not following the rules. While governors score political points on the podium, students across the country are experiencing devastating harms that seriously impact their academic performance and ability to participate in school activities.

It’s not up to students to tell our schools to follow federal law, but when the adults in power fail us, we only have each other. As high school students, we noticed that survivors in our district did not receive information about their cases for months because our coordinator worked remotely, preventing students from discussing their cases in person. Even though my classmates and I were too young to vote, we organized to ensure that school board candidates in our school district promised to replace the coordinator with someone who would take Title IX seriously.

Our organization paid off: The newly elected school board appointed an all-in-person Title IX coordinator who streamlined the process so that survivors received a response within 24 hours of first submitting their report.

At every turn, student organizers fighting for comprehensive Title IX protections face opposition: from antagonists at school board meetings, to conservative politicians, to school administrators, and even the pace of the federal bureaucracy itself. Along with other organizers at Know Your IX, I am committed to lobbying for robust, fair and consistent investigative processes, educating students about their rights, and holding schools accountable when they fail to meet their responsibilities. I’m pushing for national change because I believe it’s my job as a student advocate to tell both our elected and unelected decision-makers that it’s not their right to tell us how to feel – rather, it’s their responsibility to listen when we have the courage to speak up. , what happened to us.

While we can celebrate the Biden administration’s updated Title IX regulations as a victory, we cannot become complacent. We must continue to fight to make the promise of a violence-free education a reality in every state, in every district and in every classroom across the United States