Issue Briefs

About

Students attending college should expect to find a safe and supportive campus environment. Campus safety issues—particularly as they relate to incidents of sexual assault or other forms of sex discrimination—have received heightened national attention over the past decade. Initiatives to enhance campus safety and combat discrimination must ensure the safety and fair treatment of all students. They must also be flexible enough to be adapted to the particular circumstances of each institution.

Two federal laws address sexual violence at institutions of higher education. The first is the Clery Act, which addresses campus safety by requiring institutions of higher education to disclose campus crime statistics and security policies.

The second federal law that addresses campus sexual assault, as well as sex discrimination more broadly, is Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded programs or activities.

Currently, institutions must comply with Title IX regulations on sexual assault issued by the Trump Administration in 2020. These regulations radically transformed how colleges and universities handle sexual misconduct cases by imposing strict new procedural requirements that institutions must follow when addressing such complaints. Although some of these changes were designed to assure fairness for accused students, there have also been concerns about the impact these procedural requirements may have on sexual assault survivors and educational institutions alike. 

History

During the Obama Administration, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights aggressively pursued Title IX enforcement activities. The Department also issued guidance documents related to campus sexual assault in 2011, 2014, and 2015.

Reversing Obama’s Title IX policies, the Trump Administration rescinded the Obama-era guidance in 2017 and published final Title IX regulations in 2020. The regulations transformed how colleges and universities handled sexual misconduct cases by imposing strict new procedural requirements that institutions were required to follow when addressing such complaints. Although some of these changes were designed to assure fairness for accused students, there were also concerns about the impact these new procedural requirements were likely to have on sexual assault survivors and educational institutions alike.

In 2024, however, Title IX policies shifted once again when the Biden Administration took office. Seeking a return to – and expansion of – Obama-era Title IX policies, the new administration released final regulations that significantly increased the scope of Title IX’s reach on college campuses. Unlike the Trump Administration’s Title IX rules, which addressed sexual harassment only, the new regulations dramatically increased coverage to apply more broadly to all forms of sex discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Although the new rules eliminated or softened some of the more controversial procedural provisions in the Trump regulations, they were, in many ways, just as detailed and prescriptive as the Trump rules.

While Biden’s Title IX rules initially took effect in 2024, they were short-lived. Due to litigation, injunctions halted implementation in multiple states and at multiple institutions. Ultimately, a federal court vacated the new rules, and institutions must now comply with the 2020 version of the Title IX regulations issued by the Trump Administration, which has left its campus sexual assault policies in place since taking office a second time.