Proposed Title IX rules revision garners 240,000 comments, and Harvard students undergo mandatory Title IX pronoun training, reports Paideia Times.
Hundreds of Thousands Weigh In on New Title IX Rules
The U.S. Department of Education received more than 240,000 comments on its proposed regulatory changes to Title IX, the federal law that governs how colleges respond to complaints about sexual harassment and other forms of sex discrimination.
Lately, Title IX has become a “rallying cry” for people to express their opinions about transgender inclusion, free speech and gender theory. The 60-day comment period closed with almost twice as many comments as the Trump administration’s proposed Title IX regulations drew in 2018.
The Biden Administration’s proposed regulation would end the requirement, put in place under President Trump, for live hearings and direct questioning, and would explicitly greenlight the single-investigator model, which allows the same person to gather evidence and determine what happened. It would also broaden the definition of sexual harassment and expand protections for LGBTQ students.
The department must parse through the thousands of comments before the final regulation is released. It’s unknown when that will happen, but a year and a half passed between DeVos publishing the draft rule and a final regulation coming into effect.
Harvard Tells Students Using the Wrong Pronouns Constitutes Abuse
Undergraduate students at Harvard University were told in a mandatory Title IX training session that using wrong pronouns may constitute abuse, according to materials reviewed by The Washington Free Beacon.
The online training session, which students must complete before they can register for classes, includes a “Power and Control Wheel” to help identify “harmful” conduct.
Outside the wheel are beliefs and attitudes that “contribute to an environment that perpetuates violence,” including “sizeism and fatphobia,” “cisheterosexism,” “racism,” “transphobia,” “ageism,” and “ableism.” Harvard first launched the training in 2016 and made it mandatory two years later. The university is vague about what happens to someone who fails to abide by the policy, but violations “may” result in “termination, dismissal, expulsion,” or “revocation of tenure.”
Originally published by Paideia Times. Republished with permission.
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