Education & Title IX

The National Women’s Law Center was one of seventy civil rights, education, labor, and faith groups that sent this letter to President Obama urging his administration to publicly support and endorse the Student Non-Discrimination Act (“SNDA”), which would prohibit discrimination and harassment in K-12 public schools on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.  

The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) supports the April 4, 2011 comprehensive guidance put out by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to help schools, colleges, and universities more effectively prevent and respond to sexual harassment and violence on their campuses, as required by Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded schools.  NWLC especially welcomes OCR’s emphasis on prevention and its provision of specific procedures and remedies schools should use to combat this very serious problem, including OCR’s recognition that Title IX requires schools to use the preponderance of the evidence standard of proof for sexual harassment investigations.