WASHINGTON, D.C. — NOW urges the U.S. Department of Education to quickly restore and strengthen protections previously safeguarded by Title IX, a civil rights law aimed at equal opportunity in education. Those protections were seriously undermined by a Trump Administration rule, placing students in K- 12 grades as well as at post-secondary institutions at risk from sexual harassment, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and sex-based stalking.
NOW demands the department urgently take the following actions:
- Issue a non-enforcement directive for parts of the Trump -DeVos rule so that schools are allowed to follow state or local laws addressing harassment in education
- Assure that survivors are not forced into unfair and hostile investigations and hearings as the Trump-DeVos rule would require
- Inform schools that they are not required to dismiss Title IX complaints based on the location of the harassment
- Ensure survivors can file a complaint when their Title IX rights are violated by extending the period of time during which they may file that complaint
Without these protections, students experiencing harassment or violence – with little recourse due to the constraints imposed by the Trump-DeVos rule – could be pushed out of school. NOW urges the Department of Education to prioritize the well-being of students, and that includes implementing these essential changes to protect students until a final revision of the Trump-DeVos rule is adopted and goes into effect.