Title IX regs mean students less likely to receive justice

Today the Department of Education released new Title IX regulations that threaten student free speech and due process rights. The following statement can be attributed to FIRE Legal Director Will Creeley.

Justice is only possible when hearings are fair for everyone. So today’s regulations mean one thing: America’s college students are less likely to receive justice if they find themselves in a Title IX proceeding. 

When administrators investigate the most serious kinds of campus misconduct, colleges should use the time-tested tools that make finding the truth more likely. But the new regulations no longer require them to do so. Rather than playing political ping-pong with student rights, the Department of Education should recognize that removing procedural protections for students is the exact opposite of fairness. 

And by expanding the definition of sexual harassment, the new regulations threaten expressive rights.

FIRE has been fighting against violations of campus free speech and due process rights for more than two decades. We’re not stopping now. We remain committed to using the resources at our disposal to defend student rights against these fundamentally unfair rules.