Department Of Education Requests Comments On Proposed Title IX Regulations
by Karen Baillie, Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP (Mondaq)
On Friday, November 16, 2018, the U.S. Department of Education released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding how schools must respond to allegations of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. The Department’s press release and links to the proposed rules are online here.
The proposed rules would apply to elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools receiving federal financial assistance. This Alert addresses the provisions affecting institutions of higher education.
The current regulations offer almost no detailed standards, providing only that schools must designate a responsible employee and must publish a grievance procedure. Under the Obama Administration, the Department of Education issued a number of guidance documents that seemingly created a wide range of procedural requirements, which led to many lawsuits against institutions of higher education.
Last fall Secretary Betsy DeVos withdrew most of the Obama-era guidance because critics complained that the guidance was not promulgated through proper administrative procedures. The newly released proposed regulations will be considered through the rulemaking requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act and will be open for public comment for 60 days from the date of publication in the Federal Register.
Responding to sexual harassment and sexual misconduct is certainly a crucial priority for all schools. However, the proposed regulations may create a variety of new procedural and technological challenges for colleges and universities. If finalized, these complications could result in difficulties with implementation and potential litigation for years to come. Institutions of higher education may want to take advantage of the opportunity to provide their comments to the Department of Education before the regulations are finalized.
READ / DOWNLOAD THE PROPOSED RULE HERE (PDF) >>>
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Social networking sites and politics
BY LEE RAINIE AND AARON SMITH, Pew Research Center
It turns out that birds of a feather don’t always flock together on social networking sites when it comes to politics. There is evidence in a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that on social networking sites (SNS):
– Friends disagree with friends about political issues and usually let their disagreements pass without comment. Among the SNS users whose friends post political content, 25% always agree or mostly agree with their friends’ political postings; 73% of these SNS users “only sometimes” agree or never agree with their friends’ political postings. When they disagree with others’ posts, 66% of these SNS users say they usually ignore the posts; 28% said they usually respond with comments or posts of their own; and 5% said it depends on the circumstances.
– Users can be surprised to learn the political leanings of their friends. Some 38% of SNS users have discovered through a friend’s posts that his/her political beliefs were different than the user thought they were.
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Workplace bullying expert warns Kiwi businesses to protect employees
By: Will Trafford, NZ Herald
A bullying specialist has sounded-off on New Zealand’s rates of workplace bullying.
Dr Gary Namie, a Psychologist and head of the United States’ Workplace Bullying Institute, says New Zealand is well-positioned to virtually eliminate instances of workplace bullying were the government and business willing to tackle the problem.
Namie was visiting NZ for CultureShift, New Zealand’s first ‘Action, not just words’ anti-workplace bullying summit.
A 1700-person academic study revealed New Zealand boasts the second-worst rate of workplace bullying in the developed world with one in five workers affected.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Namie wrote “Your personal legislative and advocacy record features social justice campaigns and you speak of building a compassionate government.
“You certainly understand the needs of children. Child abuse in both our countries [NZ and the US] has long been taboo. Domestic violence, too, was criminalised after long fights for protections against abuse,” said Namie.