Lhamon served as assistant secretary for civil rights from 2013 to 2017, when she was a part of an administration that ramped up enforcement of Title IX complaints against colleges and carried out investigations that were costly and lengthy, said Melnick. During her tenure, the office threatened to withhold federal funding to colleges that were in violation of Title IX the law that prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded institutions which Lhamon said was “an effective tool for us” and was used as leverage in negotiating with colleges and universities.
In the near term, Lhamon may look to reinstate policies from her previous tenure, such as the 2016 Dear Colleague letter on transgender students and Title IX policies, which offered informal guidance clarifying that a student s transgender status is protected against discrimination by Title IX and describing how college s policies surrounding gender identity should be in compliance, such as by identifying students
May 14, 2021
TODD: So it’s quite likely that the… Well, I don’t know if it’s “quite.” It’s likely. But the Supreme Court’s gonna hear a case on “the most offensive word,” and this would be ground on which, I would hope, we’d not tread. But they’re trying to discover, as John Roberts’ court sometimes does, just brand-new aspects of the Constitution that no one’s ever seen. It’s the magic Roberts asterisk.
I hope that doesn’t happen.
They’re trying to figure out if having a really offensive word for instance, the N-word or a slur/racial slur scrawled onto the wall of an employer is grounds for employees to sue for hostile work environment. And one would assume that if someone scrawled something on the wall that it was left there for months, that is a different issue than if someone so-called something on the wall that was left there until, well, someone reported it; it was taken down.
The Academic Concept Conservative Lawmakers Love to Hate chronicle.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chronicle.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Obama administration insisted the letter was for guidance purposes only and did not carry the force of law but many college presidents told InsideHigherEd and other publications they interpreted it as a clear warning.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a libertarian group that has criticized the Obama administration’s enforcement of Title IX civil rights regulations said it was dismayed with Mr. Biden’s choice which it characterized as “a return to old, failed policies.”
“Under Lhamon’s leadership, the Office for Civil Rights enforced guidance that gutted due process protections and violated the First Amendment,” FIRE said in a statement. “Lhamon used that guidance to pressure institutions to restrict constitutionally protected speech and disregard basic procedural protections in campus disciplinary hearings.”
Flowers bloom outside the gates of North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota. | Public Domain
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has vetoed part of a bill that would have penalized higher education institutions that direct government grant money to abortion providers.
Last Friday, Burgum signed Senate Bill 2030, which includes a clause prohibiting colleges and universities from providing challenge grant funding to entities that provide abortions unless the abortions provided are “necessary to prevent the death of the woman.”
However, Burgum vetoed a section of the bill that would have created a penalty of $2.8 million for any institution of higher learning found to violate the grant ban.