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At a time when even liberals think that federal Title IX rules have gone too far in sexual harassment cases, college administrators who help to enforce them remain oblivious to their excesses. The Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA) published their "Playbook," per a recent press release. ATIXA heralded their "Playbook" as a "120-page book developed by nationally-recognized experts and field-leading practitioners as a comprehensive guide to ensure that the resolution of sexual misconduct allegations on college campuses is done right." What is the subtitle? "Best Practices for the Post-Regulatory Era." ATIXA claimed that the subtitle was chosen "to highlight...

If every other egregious example of a male student denied due process after being accused of sexual misconduct gets ignored – this one should not be. A male student who was accused of sexual harassment committed suicide just days after the University of Texas at Arlington ignored its own policies in order to punish him. The accused student’s father, a lawyer acting as the administrator of his son’s estate, is now suing the school for violating his son’s Title IX rights. College administrators, as well as members of the media and legislators, would do well to remember the name Thomas...

"You should consider killing yourself." That's what Thomas Klocke, a straight male student at the University of Texas at Arlington, allegedly told a gay male classmate after finding out about his sexuality during class on May 19, 2016. The classmate filed a Title IX complaint with the university. The problem? Klocke denied ever having made such a comment. In his version of the story, the classmate came on to him during class, calling him beautiful. Klocke felt uncomfortable, told the classmate he was straight, and moved to a different seat after the classmate wouldn't stop looking at him. The classmate...

Thomas Klocke, a student at the University of Texas at Arlington, killed himself a few days after an adverse Title IX ruling left his future academic career in doubt. Ashe Schow of Watchdog.org reports on what sounds like another example of college administrators abusing the civil rights of accused students in ways that would never be allowed in a court of law. At issue are two different version of an exchange that took place in class one day last May. The accusing student…claims that in May 2016, Klocke made a comment during a class about “privilege,” and then proceeded...

Laura Kipnis, a professor at Northwestern University, faced a Title IX investigation from the U.S. Department of Education over an essay on sexual paranoia among Millennials and their professors and administrators on college campuses (which appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education). Now, Harper Collins published her account of what happened, which also includes content and background on reasons for an increasing lack of due process, the emergence of sexual paranoia, and the stepped-up Title IX investigations. Kipnis pointed out that a Title IX investigation from the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (known as OCR) "can last two...

A group of students and parents from Minnesota filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the federal government and their school district for allowing a transgender student who was born male but identifies as female into the girls’ locker rooms, showers, and restrooms. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of challenges to the Obama administration’s bathroom mandate issued in May that requires public schools and universities nationwide to give transgender students full access to school facilities based on their gender identity instead of their biological sex. Schools that do not comply with the administration’s guidance could face legal action or...

With the first day of school looming, Texas will go to court on Friday and begin pressing its argument that the Obama administration strayed outside the law by ordering public schools to accommodate transgender students. In a case expected to come down to the distinction between sex and gender identity, the state’s lawsuit against the federal government is set for its first hearing Friday morning in Fort Worth, where U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor will hear arguments over Texas’ request for a preliminary injunction. Texas, joined by 10 other states, in May sued the Department of Education over the...

ASHINGTON, D.C. (August 2, 2016): A new Minnesota law requires all of its colleges to have websites where students can report allegations of sexual assault, naming the alleged perpetrators, but do so completely anonymously. According to the Washington Post, “that means survivors no longer will be forced to trek across campus to a Title IX office.” But that also means that students, or perhaps even non-students, can, just with a few keyboard clicks, trigger a criminal and/or administrative investigation of the student or faculty member named, irreparably smearing his reputation, and perhaps even leading to his expulsion, and to do...

For high school girls across the country, the competition for college-athletic scholarships is on the verge of ascending to a whole new level. The 44th anniversary of Title IX is less than two weeks away, but recent events suggest that the face of female athletics is changing forever. A totally new caliber of athletic prowess is being invented for womenÂ’s sports, and ordinary women simply wonÂ’t have enough equality to compete. To the surprise of no mentally stable person ever, women like Bruce Jenner will prove virtually impossible to beat when it comes to antiquated women competing against them for...

Quick (no web searching!), who was the 2016 NCAA Division I women's basketball champion? (Don't tell me that your office didn't do a women’s NCAA tournament bracket contest!) Okay, given that they've (UConn) won it four times in-a-row, that's too easy. Let's try again: Who was the last (2015) WNBA champion? (Hint: They've won it four of the last five seasons.) Don't feel bad, I didn’t know either, and twice in their recent five-year championship run they defeated the team from my home state in the championship series. Even better: Can you name five WNBA teams? How about five WNBA...

The Obama administration's directive Friday that every public school provide transgender access -- or face the loss of federal funds -- drew swift and strong condemnation from conservatives, with one public official blasting it as presidential "blackmail." The administration’s directive -- citing Title IX in telling schools to give transgender students access to all activities and facilities consistent with their gender identity -- effectively touched off a national debate that could well extend into the next president's term and reverberate through the courts. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, speaking to reporters Friday, said his state "will not yield to blackmail...

In a 2–1 panel ruling in mid April, a federal appellate court decided (or at least seemed to think that it decided) that G.G., a girl who identifies herself as male, has a legal right to use the boys’ restrooms at her high school in rural Gloucester County, Va. In so doing, the panel’s majority, consisting of two appointees of President Obama, kowtowed to the Obama administration’s radical claim that federal law requires any college or school that receives federal funding to make its single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, showers, housing, and sports teams available to “transgender students consistent with their...

“We wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t started it,” the senior Alexis Townsend said. What she meant is that when Georgia State created a football team in 2010, that put an immediate strain on athletic department finances but also required a rebalancing to comply with Title IX, the federal law mandating gender equity in higher education. A result was that Georgia State dropped its men’s cross-country and track and field programs, and added one in the nascent women’s sport of beach volleyball.

The U.S. Department of Education published Friday a list of faith-based colleges and universities that requested and were granted a religious exemption from Title IX. LGBT activist groups have been calling on the government to publish the list as part of a shaming campaign called the "Shame List" to pressure Christian colleges to consent to their agenda. The document reveals that an increasing number of colleges are seeking exemptions, and that evangelical Wheaton College is not on the list. As of April 1, as many as 232 colleges have obtained exemption from Title IX while 31 requests are pending, according...

... Title IX has now become a “juggernaut” in the words of NYU law professor Richard Epstein. He explains in this Hoover Institution article that extremely zealous bureaucrats have abused the law (specifically, the Administrative Procedure Act) to impose their own ideas of what the language “be subjected to discrimination” means. They have managed to turn it into a justification for federal intervention into every aspect of college life that somehow involves sex. Epstein highlights the amazing case of Colorado State – Pueblo student Grant Neal, who was suspended by the school after a consensual sexual relationship. The woman who...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A Virginia high school discriminated against a transgender teen by forbidding him from using the boys' restroom, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a case that could have implications for a North Carolina law that critics say discriminates against LGBT people. The case of Gavin Grimm has been especially closely watched since North Carolina enacted a law last month that bans transgender people from using public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity. That law also bans cities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances, a response to an ordinance recently passed in Charlotte. In the Virginia case,...

Earlier this season, Prairie View A&M women's basketball coach Dawn Brown suspended two players on her team because they were dating. This week, the university announced Brown would not return next season. Brown told USA Today Sports the university told her she was fired because she violated Title IX by discriminating against the players, even though Brown says the school's own Title IX administrator approved the players' suspension.

On Friday, Paul Nungesser, the alleged rapist of “Mattress Girl” Emma Sulkowicz, had his discrimination lawsuit against Columbia University dismissed. In 2014, Emma Sulkowicz launched her art-protest piece “Carry That Weight,” in which she carried her mattress with her everywhere (including to commencement), as a condemnation of Columbia's handling of her rape complaint. Though the University cleared him of wrongdoing and allowed him to continue with school, Nungesser's name was eventually made public. Last year, he filed a discrimination suit against the school under Title IX (the statute under which victims of sexual assault often bring their claims). In the...

Melissa Click, an assistant mass media communications professor at the University of Missouri, is currently suspended for assaulting a student journalist during a protest and calling for "muscle" to push the journalist out of the way. But, this was not the first incident involving the professor and the profession of free speech. Let's take a look at what has happened the past four months regarding Professor Click: • On November 9, 2015, Click called for "muscle" at a protest on the college campus, which was caught on video and went viral. • She resigned from a courtesy position in the...

A lawsuit filed by a group of women alleges that the University of Tennessee has violated Title IX regulations and created a "hostile sexual environment" through a policy of indifference toward assaults by student-athletes. The federal suit filed Tuesday in Nashville states Tennessee's policies made students more vulnerable to sexual assault and says that the school had a "clearly unreasonable response" after incidents that caused the women making complaints to endure additional harassment. The suit also states the university interfered with the disciplinary process to favor male athletes. [...] The suit was filed by David Randolph Smith, a lawyer representing...