May 18, 2020 • 13 mins
Anney and Samantha give a rundown on the history of Title IX, what it entails, and what's going on with it now.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told you production if I heart radio. Okay,
it is time for another Monday man like that. Yeah,
(00:25):
I will say in doing this outline, I may have
misspelled Monday and put Monday, which is very southern. It's
very southern. This is exactly how my mother would say it.
So every you know, I feel very very much in
tune with Mother's Day. I think I feel like I
was thinking about my mother, not necessarily about this topic
per se, but you know, just in pronunciation, it was
(00:46):
in the back of my head. That's that's what I
want to blame it on. So how did you spell it?
Was that like a D e yu. No, I just
left out the A altogether. No way Monday mon, There's
no way. There's no way in existence. But today we
are talking about Title nine in the US, so a
(01:07):
quick trigger warning. We are going to talk a little
bit about sexual assault and rape, but we're not talking
specific so even though there's no actual examples that we're
going to talk about, it is very frustrating of a topic,
I think, especially right now. So I did want to
let you guys know it is like I think most
of our stuff Monday Minies have been a little more serious,
uh than UM some of the other things that we
(01:28):
talk about. But and this one is a little more
on the nose about what's happening in the US today.
So we want to do a quick review on what
is happening again with Title nine. Yes, and we wanted
to start with what is this um. According to the
Department of Justice under the Office of Civil Rights Division,
(01:50):
Title nine was signed on June twenty three, nineteen seventy two,
as the Title nine of the Education Amendments of nineteen
seventy two, which is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits
discriminate nation on the basis of sex and any federally
funded education program or activity. It was originally focused on athletics,
financial aid, and admissions, but of course it has expanded
(02:10):
since then to deal with issues concerning sexual harassment and
sexual violence, and later it included transgender rights and pregnant women.
So Title nine has over twenty amendments under it, which
has also been expanded to UH sexual misconduct and violence
against women, and a couple of amendments to know. The
first one would be the Clary Act, created after the
(02:31):
rape and murder of Gene Cleary, and was signed in
nineteen ninety and requires public and private colleges and universities
to disclose information about certain crimes that occur on or
near a campus. UM. The Act applies to all colleges
and universities that receive any federal funding, including student financial aid. Yeah.
And I remember I went to UM Georgia Tech, the
(02:51):
Georgia Institute of Technology, and at the time kind of
bordered a an area that where a lot of college
students lived. It was cheap, but a lot of crime
happened in that area. And I just remember like walking
on that stretch of Tenth Street, and like I swear,
almost every time I was walking down it alone at night,
I would get a tech the school with Texas like
(03:11):
this had taken place on the street, and it was
just so upsetting and freight darning. Yeah. Right. Um. There's
also the Campus Save Act or the Campus Sexual Violence
Elimination Act, which was created in tween under the Obama administration.
It is an update to the Cleary Act that requires
(03:32):
more transparency in terms of reporting, response, prevention, education requirements
around sexual violence, domestic violence, and stalking. Right, So, while
we're talking about this, we do want to give a
little history of what happened under the Obama administration. And
again this is there's a lot of things that happened,
and we know a lot of controversy had happened and
a lot of incidents that have happened on in the
(03:53):
school campuses. So in two thousand eleven, the Obama administration
sent out a Dear Colleague letter. It opens up some
clear communication for whomever is addressed to. So the Dear
Colleague letter was specific to the Department of Education or
Education Department e d sending out guidelines to explain that
the requirements of Title nine and how to cover sexual violence,
(04:14):
and to remind schools of their responsibilities to take immediate
and effective steps to respond to sexual violence in accordance
with the requirements of Title nine. The d c L
also gave specific guidelines and requirements for Title nine and
how they relate to sexual violence, such as the requirements
to publish a policy against sex discrimination, designate a Title
nine coordinator, and adopt and published grievance procedures. It also
(04:38):
discusses proactive efforts for schools to take to prevent sexual violence,
in as a part of the White Houses It's on
Us campaign to end sexual assault on college campuses. President
Barack Obama described sexual assault as quote, in affront to
our basic decency and humanity, and the White House Task
Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault issued guidelines to
(05:00):
colleges to combat rape. In response to similar federal guidelines
and incidents on campuses. Some colleges and universities have established
Title nine offices focused on education, training, and compliance around
sexual assault, as well as on the investigation and enforcement
of sexual misconduct claims. And just for your information, It's
on His campaign is still around um and is a
(05:22):
nonprofit that works to bring awareness and sexual assault prevention,
and it was created as a part of the amendments
of Title nine. So these are some things to keep
in the back of your mind. There are also conversations
where there was a dispute saying that it was too
heavy leaning force victims and survivors and not for the accused.
So just a reminder, but what is happening now with
(05:45):
a turn of the administration in Secretary of Education Bessie
Divas quickly began making changes, stating, quote, the truth is
that the system established by the prior administration has felt
too many students, survivors, victims of a lack of do access,
and campus administrators have all told me that current approach
does a disservice to everyone involved. So again it came
(06:08):
in with how do we protect our boys? She did
actually say that comment, um, and there was a conversation
that it was too heavily on victims and did not
afford due process. At the same time, during the initial
rollbacks of Title nine and the d c L, Senator
Patty Murray stated, Secretary Divorce decided today to continue a
pattern undermining survivors rights, once again showing a clear lack
(06:31):
of understanding or empathy for the millions of students who
have experienced sexual violence on campus. Let's be clear, Secretary
Divorce just made an open invitation to colleges to once
again sweep this national epidemic under the RUG, which has
been a big fear for many of those who advocated
for the rights of student victims of sexual assault and violence.
(06:52):
So with Davos being the new Secretary, and with at
that point in time, the new Trump administration, the Justice
Department and Education Department reverse the transgender rights guidelines in
regards to restrooms and following the guidelines in their gender identity.
So she quickly came in and said, this is not
okay for uh, this is not okay to require schools
(07:13):
to provide such access because it does a disservice to
whomever else is there, which was a big conversation of
why Yeah. And since her initial appointment, Secretary Divoce has
been busy and as of last week, has rolled out
her new Title nine plan um. She has reversed over
(07:35):
twenty of Obama era guidelines that she's been appointed for
Title nine in regards to sexual abuse and violence and
education has made guidelines which could be difficult to reverse
even with her no longer as part of the administration.
Right and Some examples of the changes which will go
into affect August of this year include narrowing the definition
of sexual harassment as quote a school employee conditioning education
(07:59):
benefits on participation in unwelcome sexual conduct or unwelcome conduct
that a reasonable person would determine is so severe, pervasive,
and objectively offensive that is effectively denies a person equal
access to the school's education program or activity. Or sexual assault,
dating violence, domestic boss and stalking, which changed from the
(08:21):
phrase quote severe are pervasive again as said above, not
only narrows but must be more severe with the intent
of quote objectively offensive as Jenny Sue Kirson and The
New Yorker states quote a rape could be severe but
not pervasive, and a complement of one's appearance isn't necessarily
severe or objectively offensive, but maybe pervasive if repeated enough times,
(08:43):
and certainly could create a hostile environment, which shows the
problem with the definition itself. Right. And another change would
be the overall process of the hearings. Would the allowance
of hearings and cross contaminations by third party again with
the option of doing it VIADEO conferencing. And this is
her rationale and say, this is how we're going to
protect the victims by not putting them in the same
(09:05):
room um which has been seeing as part of the
due process for the accusers, but again also a threat
to intimidate the victims. And those are only a couple
of changes, and at this time the National Women's Law
Center will be suing the Educational Department in regards to
these new policies. Right, and to put this disclaimer into
(09:25):
at the end of it, I guess I could put
it at the beginning. UM, this is a continuous subject
and has been through a lot of changes and rewritse
and a lot of overall debate. And honestly, I've spent
a lot of time researching trying to narrow down the
probabatic portions as well as UM some of the issues
that was there beforehand. But there's a lot and we
(09:46):
will come back to do a more thorough look, especially
as it ties to women in school athletics, which we
didn't really talk about, and we should talk about because
we know just now the women's UH National Soccer League
was denied the equal pay, which is absurd in itself,
and this has to be another conversation. UM. And then
also we wanted to talk about the overall standard of
(10:07):
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions and how their definition of
sexual harassment is actually different and more aligned with the
old school Obama era definitions. And that's kind of this
whole relay of so how does this go in hand
in hand when victims come out of the schools to
go into the workforce, What how does this affect and
(10:29):
will it affect things like equal opportunity in the workplace.
There's a lot of conversations about apologists, and we know
we're the hearing Kavanaugh hearing. There was a lot of
debate on the boys will be boys antics and whether
or not we're rolling back into that mindset or allowing
that mindset to prevail on school campuses. Um, but we
(10:50):
wanted to go ahead and then alert use some of
the changes and what to look for. Yeah, um, and
maybe to add on to that, actually don't know what
the day is, but it's May eleven or twelve, okay, twelve, okay,
So well as we record this. Uh so, if it's
you when you hear this, you're like what, Um, that's
that's when we're putting this together. And as we watch
(11:12):
the continued battles over what will be happening when it
comes to Title nine within the educational system, there are
a lot of concerns on on what is happening and
who is being heard, And of course we know a
chuck of the standards behind these changes are due to
federal funding and who has given what and who has
given how much. It is important to continue to watch
these developments and make sure we know who is being affected.
(11:36):
So that was very very condensed, condensed version of what
is happening. Um. Like I said, these two key components
were something that people are really um concerned about, especially
because as the administration rolls out all of these new
standards and if they put it into specifics where these
changes cannot be easily changed and or reversed, this is
(11:57):
going to be a long haul in this conversation. And
we also want to see what happens with the lawsuits
against the Department of Education in itself. But as always,
if we have mistakenly said something wrong, please let us know.
We would definitely love to correct that because there was
a lot of stuff out there, a lot of concerns,
a lot of op eds, a lot of editorials that
(12:20):
were out there that we were trying to discipher through
but again about how it's going to affect generations to come,
as well as women and those who identifies female. And
we know again many tax are happening against the transgender
community through these rollbacks essentially, and we need to make
sure that we are advocating in every way we can
(12:42):
for equal opportunity and equal rights. Yes, yes, UM, So
we'll be keeping an eye on that and we'll certainly
come back and revisit it in a full episode, but
in the meantime, if you have any suggestions for what
we should cover in any of these Monday minis or
or full episodes, please let us know. You can email
(13:02):
us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at i heeart media
dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
Stuff Podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You.
Thank us always to our super producers Andrew Howard and J. J. Posway,
and thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told
You the protection of I Heart Radio. For more podcast
from my Heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told you production if I heart radio. Okay,
it is time for another Monday man like that. Yeah,
(00:25):
I will say in doing this outline, I may have
misspelled Monday and put Monday, which is very southern. It's
very southern. This is exactly how my mother would say it.
So every you know, I feel very very much in
tune with Mother's Day. I think I feel like I
was thinking about my mother, not necessarily about this topic
per se, but you know, just in pronunciation, it was
(00:46):
in the back of my head. That's that's what I
want to blame it on. So how did you spell it?
Was that like a D e yu. No, I just
left out the A altogether. No way Monday mon, There's
no way. There's no way in existence. But today we
are talking about Title nine in the US, so a
(01:07):
quick trigger warning. We are going to talk a little
bit about sexual assault and rape, but we're not talking
specific so even though there's no actual examples that we're
going to talk about, it is very frustrating of a topic,
I think, especially right now. So I did want to
let you guys know it is like I think most
of our stuff Monday Minies have been a little more serious,
uh than UM some of the other things that we
(01:28):
talk about. But and this one is a little more
on the nose about what's happening in the US today.
So we want to do a quick review on what
is happening again with Title nine. Yes, and we wanted
to start with what is this um. According to the
Department of Justice under the Office of Civil Rights Division,
(01:50):
Title nine was signed on June twenty three, nineteen seventy two,
as the Title nine of the Education Amendments of nineteen
seventy two, which is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits
discriminate nation on the basis of sex and any federally
funded education program or activity. It was originally focused on athletics,
financial aid, and admissions, but of course it has expanded
(02:10):
since then to deal with issues concerning sexual harassment and
sexual violence, and later it included transgender rights and pregnant women.
So Title nine has over twenty amendments under it, which
has also been expanded to UH sexual misconduct and violence
against women, and a couple of amendments to know. The
first one would be the Clary Act, created after the
(02:31):
rape and murder of Gene Cleary, and was signed in
nineteen ninety and requires public and private colleges and universities
to disclose information about certain crimes that occur on or
near a campus. UM. The Act applies to all colleges
and universities that receive any federal funding, including student financial aid. Yeah.
And I remember I went to UM Georgia Tech, the
(02:51):
Georgia Institute of Technology, and at the time kind of
bordered a an area that where a lot of college
students lived. It was cheap, but a lot of crime
happened in that area. And I just remember like walking
on that stretch of Tenth Street, and like I swear,
almost every time I was walking down it alone at night,
I would get a tech the school with Texas like
(03:11):
this had taken place on the street, and it was
just so upsetting and freight darning. Yeah. Right. Um. There's
also the Campus Save Act or the Campus Sexual Violence
Elimination Act, which was created in tween under the Obama administration.
It is an update to the Cleary Act that requires
(03:32):
more transparency in terms of reporting, response, prevention, education requirements
around sexual violence, domestic violence, and stalking. Right, So, while
we're talking about this, we do want to give a
little history of what happened under the Obama administration. And
again this is there's a lot of things that happened,
and we know a lot of controversy had happened and
a lot of incidents that have happened on in the
(03:53):
school campuses. So in two thousand eleven, the Obama administration
sent out a Dear Colleague letter. It opens up some
clear communication for whomever is addressed to. So the Dear
Colleague letter was specific to the Department of Education or
Education Department e d sending out guidelines to explain that
the requirements of Title nine and how to cover sexual violence,
(04:14):
and to remind schools of their responsibilities to take immediate
and effective steps to respond to sexual violence in accordance
with the requirements of Title nine. The d c L
also gave specific guidelines and requirements for Title nine and
how they relate to sexual violence, such as the requirements
to publish a policy against sex discrimination, designate a Title
nine coordinator, and adopt and published grievance procedures. It also
(04:38):
discusses proactive efforts for schools to take to prevent sexual violence,
in as a part of the White Houses It's on
Us campaign to end sexual assault on college campuses. President
Barack Obama described sexual assault as quote, in affront to
our basic decency and humanity, and the White House Task
Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault issued guidelines to
(05:00):
colleges to combat rape. In response to similar federal guidelines
and incidents on campuses. Some colleges and universities have established
Title nine offices focused on education, training, and compliance around
sexual assault, as well as on the investigation and enforcement
of sexual misconduct claims. And just for your information, It's
on His campaign is still around um and is a
(05:22):
nonprofit that works to bring awareness and sexual assault prevention,
and it was created as a part of the amendments
of Title nine. So these are some things to keep
in the back of your mind. There are also conversations
where there was a dispute saying that it was too
heavy leaning force victims and survivors and not for the accused.
So just a reminder, but what is happening now with
(05:45):
a turn of the administration in Secretary of Education Bessie
Divas quickly began making changes, stating, quote, the truth is
that the system established by the prior administration has felt
too many students, survivors, victims of a lack of do access,
and campus administrators have all told me that current approach
does a disservice to everyone involved. So again it came
(06:08):
in with how do we protect our boys? She did
actually say that comment, um, and there was a conversation
that it was too heavily on victims and did not
afford due process. At the same time, during the initial
rollbacks of Title nine and the d c L, Senator
Patty Murray stated, Secretary Divorce decided today to continue a
pattern undermining survivors rights, once again showing a clear lack
(06:31):
of understanding or empathy for the millions of students who
have experienced sexual violence on campus. Let's be clear, Secretary
Divorce just made an open invitation to colleges to once
again sweep this national epidemic under the RUG, which has
been a big fear for many of those who advocated
for the rights of student victims of sexual assault and violence.
(06:52):
So with Davos being the new Secretary, and with at
that point in time, the new Trump administration, the Justice
Department and Education Department reverse the transgender rights guidelines in
regards to restrooms and following the guidelines in their gender identity.
So she quickly came in and said, this is not
okay for uh, this is not okay to require schools
(07:13):
to provide such access because it does a disservice to
whomever else is there, which was a big conversation of
why Yeah. And since her initial appointment, Secretary Divoce has
been busy and as of last week, has rolled out
her new Title nine plan um. She has reversed over
(07:35):
twenty of Obama era guidelines that she's been appointed for
Title nine in regards to sexual abuse and violence and
education has made guidelines which could be difficult to reverse
even with her no longer as part of the administration.
Right and Some examples of the changes which will go
into affect August of this year include narrowing the definition
of sexual harassment as quote a school employee conditioning education
(07:59):
benefits on participation in unwelcome sexual conduct or unwelcome conduct
that a reasonable person would determine is so severe, pervasive,
and objectively offensive that is effectively denies a person equal
access to the school's education program or activity. Or sexual assault,
dating violence, domestic boss and stalking, which changed from the
(08:21):
phrase quote severe are pervasive again as said above, not
only narrows but must be more severe with the intent
of quote objectively offensive as Jenny Sue Kirson and The
New Yorker states quote a rape could be severe but
not pervasive, and a complement of one's appearance isn't necessarily
severe or objectively offensive, but maybe pervasive if repeated enough times,
(08:43):
and certainly could create a hostile environment, which shows the
problem with the definition itself. Right. And another change would
be the overall process of the hearings. Would the allowance
of hearings and cross contaminations by third party again with
the option of doing it VIADEO conferencing. And this is
her rationale and say, this is how we're going to
protect the victims by not putting them in the same
(09:05):
room um which has been seeing as part of the
due process for the accusers, but again also a threat
to intimidate the victims. And those are only a couple
of changes, and at this time the National Women's Law
Center will be suing the Educational Department in regards to
these new policies. Right, and to put this disclaimer into
(09:25):
at the end of it, I guess I could put
it at the beginning. UM, this is a continuous subject
and has been through a lot of changes and rewritse
and a lot of overall debate. And honestly, I've spent
a lot of time researching trying to narrow down the
probabatic portions as well as UM some of the issues
that was there beforehand. But there's a lot and we
(09:46):
will come back to do a more thorough look, especially
as it ties to women in school athletics, which we
didn't really talk about, and we should talk about because
we know just now the women's UH National Soccer League
was denied the equal pay, which is absurd in itself,
and this has to be another conversation. UM. And then
also we wanted to talk about the overall standard of
(10:07):
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissions and how their definition of
sexual harassment is actually different and more aligned with the
old school Obama era definitions. And that's kind of this
whole relay of so how does this go in hand
in hand when victims come out of the schools to
go into the workforce, What how does this affect and
(10:29):
will it affect things like equal opportunity in the workplace.
There's a lot of conversations about apologists, and we know
we're the hearing Kavanaugh hearing. There was a lot of
debate on the boys will be boys antics and whether
or not we're rolling back into that mindset or allowing
that mindset to prevail on school campuses. Um, but we
(10:50):
wanted to go ahead and then alert use some of
the changes and what to look for. Yeah, um, and
maybe to add on to that, actually don't know what
the day is, but it's May eleven or twelve, okay, twelve, okay,
So well as we record this. Uh so, if it's
you when you hear this, you're like what, Um, that's
that's when we're putting this together. And as we watch
(11:12):
the continued battles over what will be happening when it
comes to Title nine within the educational system, there are
a lot of concerns on on what is happening and
who is being heard, And of course we know a
chuck of the standards behind these changes are due to
federal funding and who has given what and who has
given how much. It is important to continue to watch
these developments and make sure we know who is being affected.
(11:36):
So that was very very condensed, condensed version of what
is happening. Um. Like I said, these two key components
were something that people are really um concerned about, especially
because as the administration rolls out all of these new
standards and if they put it into specifics where these
changes cannot be easily changed and or reversed, this is
(11:57):
going to be a long haul in this conversation. And
we also want to see what happens with the lawsuits
against the Department of Education in itself. But as always,
if we have mistakenly said something wrong, please let us know.
We would definitely love to correct that because there was
a lot of stuff out there, a lot of concerns,
a lot of op eds, a lot of editorials that
(12:20):
were out there that we were trying to discipher through
but again about how it's going to affect generations to come,
as well as women and those who identifies female. And
we know again many tax are happening against the transgender
community through these rollbacks essentially, and we need to make
sure that we are advocating in every way we can
(12:42):
for equal opportunity and equal rights. Yes, yes, UM, So
we'll be keeping an eye on that and we'll certainly
come back and revisit it in a full episode, but
in the meantime, if you have any suggestions for what
we should cover in any of these Monday minis or
or full episodes, please let us know. You can email
(13:02):
us at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at i heeart media
dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
Stuff Podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You.
Thank us always to our super producers Andrew Howard and J. J. Posway,
and thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told
You the protection of I Heart Radio. For more podcast
from my Heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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