TITLE IX Coordinator Melinda Stoops Tells How BC Will Avoid New Title IX Regs: ‘Re-Classify’
Boston College has spent millions of dollars defending against a single lawsuit by an accused student who claims it violated his due process. It’s appealing a jury award of more than $100,000 to “John Doe,” and yet a federal appeals court already ruled against the Jesuit institution once.
With the college facing new federal rules on how it must conduct sexual misconduct investigations, a Title IX official gave a curious interview to campus newspaper The Heights about how it will respond. Now that students accused of sexual misconduct must be given a live hearing with cross-examination, Title IX coordinator Melinda Stoops suggested the college can simply reclassify alleged violations under a different part of its code than Title IX.
Behavior that previously would have been covered under Title IX policy may now be investigated through the Office of Student Conduct, Stoops said.
The new rules from the Department of Education, which are scheduled to take effect in late summer, removed the responsibility of colleges to investigate incidents out of their “control,” meaning off-campus in activities and programs unrelated to the college. They also define sexual harassment by the Supreme Court’s three-part standard for educational settings: “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive.” That provision is expected to make it difficult for colleges to investigate fleeting speech-related claims, such as sex jokes.
thecollegefix-Greg Piper
