JAN 30, 2025 | NEWS | By Anabel Shenk
In April 2024, the Biden administration issued new rules and regulations to the Title IX law in the United States, originally enacted in the 1970s as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. The law prohibits any sex-based discrimination, including sexual harassment in an educational setting that receives any sort of federal funding.
The Biden administration bolstered this law, expanding its reach to issues of sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy. Under the new regulations, students were included in the resolution of the Bostock v. Clayton County (2019) ruling, which stipulated that the Civil Rights Act protected transgender and gay workers in the workplace.
On Jan. 9, a federal district court in Kentucky effectively reversed these regulations that Biden put in place last spring, reverting the law back to the 2020 regulations that the Trump administration put into place during his first term.
These 2020 regulations rescinded a 2011 Dear Colleague Letter during the Obama administration that provided new guidance on Title IX issues, specifically providing more support for victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the process of filing reports and bringing up allegations. A week ago, the student body at CC received an email from Title IX coordinator, David Jensen, on the topic of policy changes on the federal level and how they will or will not affect our institution.
“Title IX has been an evolving law,” Jensen said. “It is 52 years old now. What it was when it came out was more specifically about athletic and academic opportunities.”
Over the last 20 years, it has expanded to cover other topics such as sexual assault and pregnancy on campuses.
As administrations have come and gone, there have been different approaches to the field such as the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter. While it cracked down on trauma-based investigations, there was still not a lot of guidance, allowing institutions to choose different approaches.
“What we saw in 2020, was the first time there was a nationwide, ‘this is the way you are going to do it,’” Jensen said. The Biden administration was going to take “softening steps.”
“We want people to have their due process rights, but at the same time we don’t want to re-traumatize people during the process. That was what we were looking for in the 2024 regulations,” Jensen said.
The policy that Joshua Iringhuasen, deputy Title IX coordinator, created in 2023 was in anticipation of these 2024 regulations.
However, in July of that year, there was a case in Kansas where a court provided a list of institutions including Colorado College that were prohibited from putting the 2024 regulations into place. The argument was that there was an overbroad use of the Department of Education in these new regulations.
The statement we saw last week from Jensen followed the ruling made by the Kentucky court which confirmed the Kansas ruling: the 2024 regulations were an overreach of the Department of Education, and as of now, institutions are reverting back to the 2020 regulations.
“The sticking point with the 2024 regulations that you see is around the issues of transgender students,” Jensen explained. “Granting access to educational opportunities, including field of study, classes, etc. were all expanded to include transgender students in the 2024 regulations.”
All of the legal action taken in the summer of last year about the over-reach of the regulations were predominantly around gender issues.
“The reality though is that the 2024 regulations were so much more than just the gender issue. There was increased expansion of the protection of pregnancy, it wasn’t just that one issue but because of that one issue, everything has been pushed back to the 2020 regulations,” Jensen said.
Colorado College is a private institution that receives federal funding through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). Because of this, CC needs to follow the federal regulations on Title IX.
“But what those regulations do is they set a floor right now,” Jensen explained. “What we are trying to do is maintain that floor requirement but really try and craft what we have to do into a place that is conducive to our mission, vision, and values. If you look at our policy right now, there is still information in there that protects gender identity and sexual orientation. We aren’t taking those out.”
An example that Jensen provided was how we are responding to pregnancy issues. CC still includes significant protections for students who are dealing with any kind of pregnancy-related issues that were in the 2024 regulations.
“We are still going to be active in making sure we are providing education access regardless of their protective class,” Jensen said.
When asked about what is next and changes he would like to see this year, Jensen took a deep breath.“Where there are a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainties now is what is the next thing that is going to come out of the office of the president, what is the next executive order coming out?” he said. “What I want to see happen is making sure that we are maintaining what Colorado College is.”