In what seems like a last-minute scramble to tie up loose ends, the Department of Education has published a number of materials in a very short timeframe. New documents include resources on retaliation and resolving hostile environments under Title VI. Since mid-December the Department has published eight Title VI resolutions and one Title IX resolution.
The new resources include:
Civil Rights Protections Against Retaliation: A Resource for School Communities
The resource on retaliation is available here. This 5-page resource includes questions and answers about retaliation. After an overview, the Q&A explains what an adverse action is and how someone might show a causal connection between an adverse action and protected activity. The resource includes 15 examples of potential unlawful retaliation, such as a university disabling a student’s email account after they sent the university a complaint about sexual harassment by a professor.
Resource: Resolving a Hostile Environment Under Title VI
The resource on resolving a hostile environment under Title VI is here. This 10-page resource supplements previous Title VI guidance to “discuss some considerations for schools when taking action to remediate a hostile environment under Title VI.” OCR restated the standard for when OCR could find a Title VI violation in its enforcement, including when a school fails to take prompt and effective steps reasonably calculated to end the harassment, eliminate any hostile environment and its effects, and prevent the harassment from recurring.
OCR then provided a list of the types of actions institutions have agreed to take in resolutions with OCR, such as reviewing and revising policies, offering support services to students, providing training to the campus community, and conducting climate surveys.
The resource then includes summaries from eight relevant resolutions in the past ten years to show how OCR applies the law to the facts and give examples of required remedies. Only two of the eight summaries are from postsecondary institutions.
The new resolutions are briefly summarized and linked below:
Shared Ancestry
The School District of Philadelphia: In December OCR announced a resolution of a complaint against the School District of Philadelphia that alleged discrimination on the basis of shared Jewish ancestry. Specifically the complaint alleged that the District failed to appropriately respond to incidents of harassment in the 2023-24 academic year. OCR identified compliance concerns about the District’s response to notice of alleged harassment, records maintenance, and apparent retaliation against complainant and a community organization. The resolution letter is here, and the agreement is here.
University of Cincinatti: The University of Cincinatti entered into a resolution agreement with OCR that was announced on December 20, 2024. OCR said that the university misapplied the applicable law when responding and also failed to respond to reports to shared ancestry harassment. Issues identified included failure to address hostile environments caused by protected speech, failing to address conduct that occurred off-campus, and failure to address conduct when a complainant could not identify a respondent by name. The resolution letter is available here, and the agreement is here.
University of California System: In late December OCR entered into a resolution agreement with the University of California to resolve nine Title VI complaints across five campuses. OCR did not conclude its investigations before the resolution but did identify some compliance concerns that are outlined in the resolution letter. The compliance concerns included an apparent failure to respond promptly or effectively to possible hostile environments based on national origin and shared ancestry, including by failing to analyze whether protected speech nevertheless caused a hostile environment. OCR also identified that even when the universities did respond, their response(s) may have failed to remedy the effects of the hostile environment and prevent recurrence of the harassment. OCR also identified concerns about different treatment at several campuses, including when students perceived as Jewish and/or Israeli were blocked entry to campus during encampments, and when policies about canceling or missing classes for protests were applied unequally. In some instances, incidents that may violate multiple policies were referred out of nondiscrimination offices to student conduct or another forum. Many agreements this past year stressed the importance of centralized record keeping for these matters to ensure not only consistent response but also to ensure that the responsible offices can consider the totality of the circumstances when assessing the appropriate response and to determine whether there is a hostile environment.
University of California, Los Angeles: On January 13 OCR announced it resolved a complaint from 2018 about a failure to respond to antisemitic harassment during a Students for Justice in Palestine conference held on campus. OCR announced that it found UCLA’s response did not violate federal civil rights requirements, and the resolution letter describes the steps the University took, which OCR found to be sufficient. Such steps included ensuring University administrators were available accessible to students; publishing an op-ed written by the president about the dangers of antisemitism; applying appropriate time, place, and manner restrictions for the private, invitation-only event; and wide publication and information sharing about how to file a discrimination complaint and access resources. OCR also noted that the University took care to coordinate security and otherwise address SJP’s safety concerns for the conference.
Johns Hopkins University: On January 7 OCR announced that it resolved a complaint against the University that alleged a failure to respond to alleged harassment of students on the basis of shared Jewish ancestry in a manner consistent with Title VI. The letter is here, and the agreement is here. OCR identified concerns to be addressed by the requirements in the agreement and acknowledged the University’s proactive approach to fulfill its Title VI obligations. The compliance concerns including the following:
- Records generally did not reflect whether the university considered whether a number of reported incidents individually or cumulatively created a hostile environment for students.
- The University mistakenly used a “direct threat” analysis rather than the hostile environment analysis in response to a complaint about online speech.
- The University did not respond to incidents without identified respondents or where a reporting party did not respond to outreach, even where the University had information to identify the respondents.
Lehigh University: On. January 13 OCR announced it resolved a Title VI complaint at Lehigh University and identified compliance concerns about the University’s response to incidents from the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years. OCR identified compliance concerns, including that the university appeared to not evaluate whether individual incidents of alleged harassment contributed to or created a hostile environment based on shared ancestry. The resolution letter is available here and the agreement is available here.
University of Washington: OCR announced a resolution agreement with the University of Washington on January 15. After reviewing 140 reports of discrimination or harassment against students based on shared ancestry, OCR identified compliance concerns about the University’s responses to the reports. For example, OCR found that that the University failed to take steps to assess whether there was a hostile environment and then to take steps designed to end the hostile environment; that reports and responses were not carefully or consistently tracked; and that response to reports seemed to be conditioned on the complainant’s willing to participate and respond to outreach. OCR also recounted the proactive work by the University, including the response to recommendations by two task forces—one on Islamaphobia and one on antisemitism. Actions include creating a Title VI coordinator to oversee institutional compliance; centralizing civil rights compliance in an office that includes the Title VI Coordinator and Title IX Coordinator, and civil rights investigators; and establishing new protocols to track, process, and respond to reports of discrimination and harassment. The resolution letter is available here, and the agreement here.
Rutgers: In early January the Department of Education announced that it had resolved three complaints against Rutgers University in New Jersey that had alleged discrimination on the basis of national origin, including shared ancestry.
OCR reviewed more than 400 reports received by the University between July 2023 and June 2024. Ultimately OCR identified compliance concerns around the University’s response to reports, including that the University treated people differently based on national origin with the way it implemented its policies. In its letter, OCR wrote that the evidence it reviewed indicates that the University failed (1) to evaluate whether harassment created a hostile environment and (2) to take appropriate responsive action to what OCR called “a likely hostile environment.”
As in many other recent Title IX agreements, OCR also identified a concern about the University responding individually to reports rather than considering the cumulative effect of reported conduct when determining whether there was a hostile environment.
OCR’s announcement included a bulleted list of actions already started or completed by the University, including updating policies and procedures; issuing a nondiscrimination statement explicitly addressing shared ancestry; reviewing past complaints and taking action where appropriate; reviewing past violations and addressing differential treatment; providing relevant training to students and employees; conducting listening sessions; and administering a climate survey.
Although the upcoming inauguration signals staffing changes at OCR and other offices, OCR currently has over 140 open Title VI shared ancestry investigations, so more resolutions are expected over the coming year and beyond. The resolution letter is here, and the agreement is here.
Title IX
Green Bay Area Public School District: OCR announced on December 20, 2024 that it entered into a resolution agreement with the District and found a violation and compliance concerns. The Title IX violation related to the District’s failure to complete investigations, such as when law enforcement was also completing an investigation of the conduct at issue, when a matter was referred to law enforcement, or when the employee alleged to have engaged in the misconduct resigned. The compliance concerns included inconsistent documentation of the District’s response to reports of sexual harassment and insufficient evidence that the District properly and equitably responded to allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault. The resolution letter is here, and the agreement is here.
Grand River Solutions will continue to monitor civil rights-related publications from the Department of Education.
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What Now? Civil Rights and Campus Safety in the New Administration
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