{"id":1556,"date":"2017-09-13T08:00:20","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T13:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=1556"},"modified":"2017-09-12T15:05:50","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T20:05:50","slug":"backtracking-on-title-ix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2017\/09\/13\/backtracking-on-title-ix\/","title":{"rendered":"Backtracking on Title IX?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Hamza Butt, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As students return to school, colleges and universities across the country are increasingly concerned about their role in preventing and disciplining sexual misconduct, harassment, and assault. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos <\/span>recently announced changes<\/span><\/a> to the Obama administration’s guidelines for Title IX investigations of sexual harassment in higher education. DeVos <\/span>drew criticism this past summer<\/span><\/a> in hearings about Title IX for limiting the participation of student survivors and receiving testimony from advocates for accused students regarding harassment and assault. Others criticize campus investigations of sexual misconduct for a lack of transparency and due process. Social science research can help us understand the institutional and cultural forces that shape this serious problem. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Institutional Story<\/b><\/h3>\n
Rather than focusing on sexual <\/span>misconduct<\/span><\/i>, U.S. law tends to categorize it as a kind of sex <\/span>discrimination<\/span><\/i>. The difference matters — it means that colleges, universities, and the Department of Education have taken a set of legal guidelines originally meant to fight sex discrimination in education and sport (Title IX) and use them as the basis for investigations of sexual misconduct. This improvised solution makes it easier to overlook the fact that sexual harassment happens when institutions provide power to harassers, not just when they explicitly discriminate. <\/span><\/h5>\n