Litigation and the Title IX Coordinator: A Look Into the Effects of Litigation on the 23 CSU System Campuses After Implementation of a Title IX Coordinator
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Sexual misconduct remains among the highest underreported crimes across the nation. Incidents of sexual misconduct at institutions of higher education across the United States continue to be of grave concern as well. Lawsuits for mishandled reports of sexual misconduct by college and university administration as a violation of Title IX continues to draw media attention as litigation presents itself to be a viable method for aggressive institutional and societal change.
Title IX law seeks to eliminate, prevent, and remedy instances of sex discrimination in educational activities, programs, and employment and applies to all colleges and universities that receive federal financial assistance. Violation of Title IX law exposes institutions to both litigation and loss of federal funding. In an effort to address institutional compliance with Title IX, the role of the Title IX coordinator was created as a tool of policy implementation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect, if any, of the role of the Title IX coordinator as a method of policy implementation through demonstration of a statistically significant difference in the number of cases of litigation for mishandled reports of sexual misconduct by administration across the 23 CSU System campuses. The study utilized a quantitative quasiexperimental study to analyze the intervention of the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter and publish mandate of a Title IX coordinator in relation to number of cases of Title IX litigation. A paired t test analyzed the number of cases of Title IX litigation across the 23 CSU System campuses 6 years before and 6 years after the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter and published mandate of a Title IX coordinator.