RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS and New Proposed Title IX Regulations For a Fairer Process
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently proposed new rules intended to remedy the perceived shortcomings of the Obama-era guidelines, including the concern that they have improperly undermined the rights of those who might have been falsely accused of sexual assault and harassment. Both religious and secular colleges have struggled with due-process issues in their attempts to implement Obama’s rules. And some Catholic colleges and other faith-based schools felt forced to obtain religious exemptions from the redefinition of gender in the Obama-era guidance. Many Catholic schools claimed religious exemptions when the Obama administration’s Office of Civil Rights expanded its interpretations to concerns over conflict with the Church’s teaching on human sexuality. Now, under DeVos’ new rules, religious schools would no longer have to submit a written request for a religious exemption to the Department of Education. According to DOoED, involving religious schools in the process of requesting a religious exemption was unnecessary, burdensome and not in alignment with the original text of Title IX. “The additional language clarifying that the letter to the assistant secretary is not required to assert the exemption brings the regulatory language into alignment with long-standing department practice,” the proposed rule states.
ncregister By Lauretta Brown
