New Book by FIRE Executive Director Reveals How Title IX Has Been Twisted to Threaten Campus Rights

PHILADELPHIA, September 27, 2016—How did enforcement of a 44-year-old law prohibiting sex discrimination in education become one of this decade’s greatest threats to student and faculty rights on campus?

A new short book released today by Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) Executive Director Robert Shibley seeks to answer that question. Twisting Title IX is the story of how a federal law called Title IX has become a behemoth that the federal government and many college administrators treat as though it supersedes the U.S. Constitution.

The broadside provides sobering accounts of student and faculty members who have seen their free speech and due process rights violated in the name of Title IX, including:

• a student at the University of Oregon charged with five conduct violations for one four-word joke about sex;
• a Stanford University student found guilty of sexual assault in a campus court because of a new, unlawful federal Title IX mandate; and
• a professor subjected to a 72-day “Title IX inquisition” for publishing an article about—ironically—Title IX regulations run amok.

These are just some of the examples of what has happened since unaccountable government officials within the Departments of Education and Justice have been allowed to “twist” Title IX to prioritize politics over free speech, fundamental fairness, and basic human decency.

While help may come too late for many of the present victims of Title IX abuse, Shibley’s Twisting Title IX also features prescriptions for change and explains how some students, faculty members, and even one institution have refused to back down—and are fighting back.

Robert L. Shibley is the executive director of FIRE. He is a graduate of Duke University and Duke University School of Law. In his 13-year career at FIRE, he has helped hundreds of students and faculty members whose rights to free speech and due process have been violated on campus.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending liberty, freedom of speech, due process, academic freedom, legal equality, and freedom of conscience on America’s college campuses.

TWISTING TITLE IX (Encounter Books; Publication Date: September 27, 2016; 48 pages; ISBN: 9781594039218; $5.99.)

CONTACT:
Nico Perrino, Director of Communications, FIRE: 215-717-3473; media@thefire.org