Rethinking Campus and School Title IX Policies and Procedures

I apologize in advance for the fact that there are no paragraph breaks in this description. It is not my fault. Please contact me directly if you have questions about the class and I will email you a more readable description. Thanks, MLD. Seminar with Concurrent Policy Lab: Rethinking Campus and School Title IX Policies and Procedures. Policy Lab Client: National Women's Law Center: Over the past six years, the issue of campus sexual assault has exploded into the public discourse. While definitive figures are difficult to obtain due to the necessarily private nature of these events, several recent studies estimate that between 20-25% of college women (and a similar proportion of students identifying as transgender and gender-nonconforming, as well as around 5-10% of male students) experience sexual assault. Survivors have come forward across the country with harrowing stories of assault followed by an insensitive or indifferent response from college administrators, launching one of the most successful, and surprising, social movements in recent memory. Statistics are equally disturbing in the middle and high school context. As a result, the federal government under President Obama stepped up its civil rights enforcement in this area, with over 250 colleges and universities currently under investigation for allegedly mishandling student sexual assault complaints. At the same time, students accused of sexual assault have complained of botched processes driven by a "campus rape over-correction" that denied them a fair disciplinary hearing. It is clear that schools are struggling to develop and implement policies and procedures that satisfy their legal obligations in this area. While the future of federal enforcement under the Trump Administration is uncertain, schools are still subject to federal and state law that require them have policies and procedures to address sexual harassment and violence. This course focuses on the legal and policy issues surrounding the highly challenging area of investigation and adjudication of sexual assault and other gender-motivated violence on college campuses and in K12 schools. It will cover the federal and state legal frameworks governing these procedures including Title IX, the Violence Against Women Act, and the Clery Act, and examine current cases as well as the rapidly-evolving legal, federal regulatory, and political environment surrounding this issue. Guest speakers working in the area will help to broaden the class's understanding of the subject matter. Students in this seminar will have the opportunity to participate in the invitation-only national conference entitled The Way Forward: Title IX Advocacy in the Trump Era, which will be held May 1-2 at Stanford Law School and is organized in conjunction with the National Women's Law Center. See [http://conferences.law.stanford.edu/thewayforward-title9/] for more information on the conference. Concurrent Seminar and Policy Lab: The seminar is taught concurrently with the Policy Lab (also entitled "Rethinking Campus and School Title IX Policies and Procedures"). All students registered for the seminar participate in the Policy Lab, which works with the National Women's Law Center toward the development of a set of evidence-based and legally compliant model policies and procedures. Given all the controversy, surprisingly little is actually known about the policies and processes that are currently in use, nor is there any way of easily ascertaining what the majority of an institution's "peer schools" are doing with respect to solving a challenge or addressing an issue. There is no set of "best practices" to which school administrators can easily turn. Students will analyze cutting-edge issues related to school-based gender-motivated violence and work on a white paper for the NWLC that includes both legal and empirical research into the policies and procedures currently in use around the country. Throughout the class, students will have the opportunity to reflect on what they are learning and how it applies in a professional context. The eventual goal of this Policy Lab is the development in conjunction with NWLC of a free, web-based, open-source set of adaptable model policies and procedures that are targeted for different market segments (i.e., large private, large public, small private, HBCU, community colleges, and k12). Course Schedule and Optional Travel: The first three weeks of the class there will be two meetings per week, on Tuesday and Thursday from 4:15 to 6:15. Students will meet with Fatima Goss Graves, Senior Vice President for Program at the NWLC during week 2 to hear her expectations regarding the project and ask questions. During weeks 4-6 the class will meet once per week, on Thursday from 4:15-7:15 and small groups will work on their assigned sections of the project. On Thursday, May 4 (week 5), the class will meet with special guest Catherine Lhamon, former Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights and have the opportunity to discuss the project with her and receive her feedback. During Week 7, the class will take an optional trip to Washington DC to present the completed project to the staff of the NWLC on Friday May 19. The class will be housed at Stanford in Washington from Thursday May 18, and will attend a hearing of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in the morning of May 19 and then present their project in the afternoon. Travel expenses (other than incidentals) are provided. On Saturday, May 20 we will have the option to meet with other policy makers and activists as well as sightsee (including an attempted visit to the National Museum of African American History). We will return to Stanford on Sunday May 21. There will be no class during week 8. Enrollment, Assignments, and Evaluation; The Seminar and concurrent policy lab are both open to law students, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates. The seminar has two sections. Section 1 is a 2-hour seminar and students enrolling in Section 1 must also enroll in the Law 805R Policy Lab (1-hour). Section 2 is a 3-hour seminar, and students may enroll in that Section without concurrent enrollment in the Policy Lab. Regardless of the section of enrollment, all students will do the same assignments and be evaluated on the same criteria. All students will complete written work equivalent to a 26 page research paper. Law students will receive "R" credit for the seminar. Elements used in grading: Performance, Class Participation, Written Assignments, Final Paper. CONSENT APPLICATION: To apply for this course, students must complete and submit a Consent Application Form available on the SLS website (Click Courses at the bottom of the homepage and then click Consent of Instructor Forms). See Consent Application Form for instructions and submission deadline.