Transcript

Host: Hello, and welcome to Prevention and Protection, UE’s risk management podcast. This is Part 2 of a special two-part series of podcasts in honor of Title IX’s 50th anniversary. Today’s discussion focuses on Title IX’s impact on student sexual harassment. Our host is Alyssa Keehan of United Educators’ Risk Management department.

Alyssa is the Director of Risk Management Research and Consulting, and she’s joined by Title IX expert Jody Shipper. Before we begin, a quick reminder to listeners that you can find other UE podcasts, as well as resources, on our website, www.ue.org. Our podcasts are also available on Apple Music. Now here’s Alyssa.

Alyssa Keehan: Hello, and welcome to Part 2 of “Title IX at 50,” our special two-part series of podcasts by United Educators focused on understanding the past, present, and future impact of Title IX, in honor of the law’s 50th anniversary. I’m Alyssa Keehan, Director of Risk Management Research and Consulting at UE, and I’ll be your host.

As part of this series, we’ll interview different experts who’ve devoted their careers to studying and advising educational institutions about Title IX. In Part 1, we examined athletics. And in this episode, Part 2, we’ll address Title IX’s impact on student sexual harassment.

Today, we’ll talk about how Title IX has impacted the handling of student sexual harassment cases at K-12 and higher education institutions and explore what’s to come. Joining us for this discussion is Jody Shipper. Jody is a pioneer and expert in the area of Title IX sexual harassment, who has a long career advising educational institutions in this area.

Jody is Founder and Director of Grand River Solutions, a consulting business focused on helping K-12 institutions and colleges address their Title IX and Clery Act obligations. She previously was the system-wide director for Title IX compliance for the University of California system, and prior to that worked for 11 years as the Executive Director of the Office of Equity and Diversity at a large private research university. Jody, welcome to our podcast. We’re so happy to have you.

Jody Shipper: I’m absolutely thrilled to be here. This feels like a really great moment to pause and reflect on the very real impact of Title IX on campuses and think about how that has much more broadly impacted our society’s understanding of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and so much more.

Keehan: Well, you know the language of Title IX, the statute itself, it’s simple and yet broad: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

I mean, that’s it, that’s the Title IX statute. But there’s a lot in those words to unpack. So while the law applies broadly to sex discrimination at education institutions, I think the first 25 years of Title IX’s history was primarily about athletics.

I mean, it was mainly perceived as a vehicle for gender equity and athletics, but in later years, Title IX has become so much more particularly in the area of student sexual harassment. Jody, can you tell our listeners when the regulatory of focus of Title IX expanded beyond athletics to address sexual harassment?

Shipper: Yes. It was not always clear what Title IX covered and it certainly was not intuitive from the start that the language about “no person shall be excluded” or “no person shall be subjected to discrimination,” that that language applied to sexual harassment.

It seems so intuitive today, but it was not intuitive in the ‘70s when the statute was passed, in the ‘80s or even in the ‘90s, which was about 20 years after Title IX had passed. One really big wake up call was the Supreme Court case of Franklin vs. Gwinnett in which the Supreme Court ruled that a student was entitled to protection from sexual harassment by a teacher under Title IX.

This was 1992. So this is quite some time after the passage of Title IX. And the Supreme Court used this case to set out its then current thinking on how to analyze Title IX cases. And interestingly, because there was so little case law, borrowed many of the legal principles applicable to sexual harassment in the workplace that had been already developed under Title VII.

And that last point we will loop back to, that won’t be important for several more years, but then in 1998, the Supreme Court issued another decision in Gebser vs. Lago Vista Independent School District. And this was also a case involving a teacher accused of sexually harassing a student. But here the question was whether a school could be liable for money for monetary damages when sued under Title IX, because that was not clear from the statutory language. Alyssa just read to us very short statute.

So in this instance, the Supreme Court stated it would not hold a school liable, or a school district liable for money damages for a teacher’s sexual harassment of a student, unless there was actual notice of the harassment and then deliberate indifference by the school.

This case was really such a landmark in that it set out and paved the way for so much of how we understand Title IX today. Actual notice was a key point in this Gebser case in 1998, this involved the case of a student who had never reported or complained about a relationship with a teacher.

And actual notice differs from this idea of someone should have guessed or someone should have figured this out. Actual notice, the court said, means actual knowledge that someone gave notice to — and this language comes back later — an official who at a minimum has authority to address the alleged discrimination and institute corrective measures.

And then in this same case, we learned about the concept of deliberate indifference, meaning that once there is actual knowledge, the school, if they fail to adequately respond, they’ve been deliberately indifferent. In other words, Gebser taught us this means the official who learns of this potential Title IX violation decided not to remedy the violation.

That’s the heart of deliberate indifference. You may also recognize this language that I just used a moment ago about an official with authority to address the alleged discrimination and institute corrective measures as language that showed up years later when we started talking a lot more about responsible employees. So Alyssa, there was so much to unpack in 1998 that was not evident when that statue was first passed.

Keehan: Most definitely. So from your description, it sounds like things didn’t really start heating up with Title IX being applied to student sexual harassment until the 1990s, first starting with the Franklin vs. Gwinnett case, which said Title IX could apply to sexual harassment, and then the Gebser case, which ruled it was possible to award monetary damages for sexual harassment under Title IX and a few other things.

In addition to these Supreme Court rulings, there were a couple other noteworthy things on the Title IX sexual harassment front that occurred in the late ‘90s that are probably worth mentioning here, specifically the issuance of the Office for Civil Rights’ 1997 sexual harassment guidance and the Davis vs. Monroe County Board of Education Supreme Court case.

Jody, can you talk about both this court case and guidance for our listeners?

Shipper: Absolutely. So Davis was interesting in that it reminded schools, because remember, not intuitive — we already needed big reminders that students were protected from sexual harassment by their teachers.

Davis reminded us that student-on-student sexual harassment is covered by that statutory language of no person shall be excluded or no person shall be subjected to discrimination, meaning covered by Title IX.

Something that today is a no-brainer had to go all the way to the Supreme Court for clarification. And yet, despite this clarification and despite the 1997 guidance, which by the way was undone as it were by the Gebser ruling on the issue of notice, what kind of notice did a school need, but very few schools paid attention to these court cases, nor did they pay sufficient attention to that 1997 guidance.

In a few minutes, we’ll be talking about 2011 and all that happened then. But for those who remember that huge reaction, 1997 was really a big yawn, generally. It didn’t get the kind of attention it should have received at the time. Schools weren’t routinely revising their policies, putting prevention programs in place. We didn’t have classes and courses.

And I know the technology was different, so we wouldn’t have had webinars at the time, but there weren’t a lot of classes to attend with big, splashy notice that you better learn about this because you’re likely to be in violation if you’re not amending all of your policies. So, big yawn was the national reaction.

Keehan: Well, I think with hindsight being 20/20, it’s just so interesting to me that while there were some significant court rulings and federal guidance on the topic of Title IX sexual harassment occurring, it was all just kind of being ignored.

But then we entered the 2000s and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights tries again to get schools to focus on the topic by issuing the 2001 Revised Sexual Harassment Guidance. Jody, did that guidance have the intended effect of really causing schools to pay attention to their student sexual harassment policies?

Shipper: Well, so the 2001 guidance was issued in part in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Gebser. And again, mostly, but not exclusively on this question of knowledge and when you know or should respond when you’re on notice. The 2000 guidance very specifically said that it was not intended to address or set the standards for liability in private lawsuits.

So when one person sues their school, that 2001 guidance set out OCR’s view of an appropriate response by a school to discrimination and the standards they were telling us in that guidance that OCR would use when it was investigating a school and in its administrative enforcement of Title IX.

Now even though it has since been rescinded by the Department of Education, that 2001 guidance set forth a lot of recommendations that provided general framework for so many of the best practices a school might consider when responding to complaints of harassment, and remains an important document to go back and reread in that regard.

But no, in answer to your question, did not get a huge reaction. There were some who were more aware of the 2001 guidance that it was a little more publicized, but so many schools at the time were still unaware of their obligations and of the need even to have a Title IX coordinator.

In 2006, we got another reminder from OCR, a Dear Colleague Letter that reinforced that 2001 guidance and updated it. And yes, some of the language in the 2006 guidance is now quite outdated, such as definitions of sexual harassment, but there is still some very helpful language there about how to identify whether or not a hostile environment exists and how to analyze some of these concepts.

So I encourage everyone to go back and reread it. You might be surprised at the depth of what’s in there. But again, not widely applied. And in fact was shocking to many in 2011, we haven’t gotten there yet, that there had been guidance before 2011.

Keehan: You mentioned 2011. So Jody, when did schools really start to pay attention to the issue of student sexual harassment and assault?

Shipper: Well, certainly for anyone who’s been working in this field, you know that 2011 was a big year. On April 4 of that year, a Dear Colleague Letter was sent out. It landed with a big thud on the desks of every college and university President around the country, because that’s how that was distributed.

But even before that press release came out and the letter came out, we were starting in the 2000s to hear more noise from activists and people coming forward and really brave students coming forward to talk about their experiences.

We also had social media starting and different ways that individuals had of getting their stories out without needing to hire a formal PR firm or figure out how to access the media, as would’ve been the case years before that. So there was a lot of noise in 2010 — I don’t know that everyone paid attention, but it was there and it was brewing — and then we get that Dear Colleague Letter in April 4, 2011, along with all these very personal stories which really gave true meaning to the words that were in that Dear Colleague Letter. And that was a real seismic shift.

Keehan: Jody, you were a Title IX coordinator on a campus at the time the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter came out. How did your life change as a result — I mean, so our listeners can understand the impact of that letter. Can you just talk what your job was like before the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter vs. after?

Shipper: When I told anybody that I was a Title IX coordinator in the 2000s or any time before 2011, and I’ll even say in 2011, because it took a little while for everyone to sort of wrap their heads around what was going on. People would look at me and say, “What’s that?” or “Oh, I didn’t know you worked in football or I didn’t know you worked in athletics.” I had attorneys from major colleges and universities who were entirely unaware of their Title IX obligations, who really thought I was a little bit nuts to think this was a big deal.

And then suddenly we had a lot of national attention on the issue. And at the same time, a very active Department of Education was conducting these massive policy and procedure reviews at campuses around the country, publishing lists of the schools under investigation.

And yet it still took a while for schools to understand their obligations. This was not, the letter came out April 4 and on April 5, everyone is convening task forces and working groups to revise policies. It took really two, three, four years for everyone to really get on board, I think, and recognize what their obligations were and that they, the schools, had these obligations and the burden to really figure out how to respond and how to adjudicate these cases.

Alyssa, I met you in 2011 or very early 2012. I had given a talk at NACUA (the National Association of College and University Attorneys) at a conference. And I met you in a hallway right afterwards. I still remember the moment, but I remember being mobbed. It was a crazy sensation after my talk by attorneys who could not believe that I was telling them the truth, that they were going to have to take all of these steps outlined in that Dear Colleague Letter. And of course, now when we look back at that letter, it’s positively quaint as compared to the obligations we now have and where we stand now. But it was a shocker to people who worked in higher ed at the time that there was a lot of work that they were going to have to do and that everyone was going to have to think differently.

Keehan: I mean, I remember that NACUA conference well. And for our listeners who maybe aren’t familiar with NACUA, it’s the National Association of College and University Attorneys. You were very popular, Jody, at that conference, because people were kind of in a panic about their Title IX sexual harassment compliance efforts.

Shipper: There were so many shifts, but one of the ones that really struck me was prior to 2011, the idea in student conduct cases was to help our students grow by putting on their own case, right? They would have the obligation to put their case together, represent themselves as it were or defend themselves, get their witnesses, go out and get their evidence. And it was regarded almost as an important way for students to learn, to speak up for themselves and to handle their issues as an educational moment for them, but what it really did was it put all the burden on the students.

And one of the biggest shifts was for schools to recognize that that was not appropriate, that the school had the burden to go find the witnesses and find the evidence and to work through the mountains of evidence and figure out what was going on rather than putting the burden on the students. In my mind, that was one of the biggest overall shifts in our thinking before 2011 and after.

Keehan: Yeah. That’s a great point. And while the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter was certainly a watershed moment in terms of Title IX’s application to student sexual harassment, it was just the beginning of a new era of awareness regarding sexual violence in schools. So talk to us about what came next.

Shipper: Well, there was certainly a lot of movement and a lot of discussion. And then we had, instead of just the Department of Education, now we have congressional action. And so in 2013, we had the Violence Against Women Act, which were amendments to the Clery Act.

I know that’s a lot of different bits and pieces there, but this is legislation that unlike guidance and the letters we had seen in the past, this is now a statutory framework that went through what we call a negotiated rulemaking process, which means there’s a draft published and then a period when people can ask questions and provide their comments. And then those extensive comments that were received, people actually go through them and decide how to answer those comments and whether that draft legislation is going to change. And then you get a final rule.

These amendments to the Clery Act mandated very specific elements of a disciplinary process that a school would need to use in cases involving dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, and included specific rights for the parties. And, in fact, those elements all remain in place today.

Keehan: Well, I’m so glad you brought up the 2013 Violence Against Women Act amendments to the Clery Act because they really go part and parcel with Title IX. And yet, as you mentioned, they are different. Can you just maybe describe a little bit the interplay there between Title IX and the 2013 Violence Against Women Act amendments in the Clery Act? Because I think that’s important to understanding Title IX story.

Shipper: Sure. We could probably spend a whole day discussing the interplay between a Title IX Clery Act and the 2013 VAWA amendments. But in short, the Clery Act, which is separate legislation requires that certain disclosures be made to a campus community in event that certain crimes are alleged to have occurred, not just crimes relating to sex or gender, but a much broader, very specific list of crimes.

And the campus has an obligation to publish and disseminate information, including an annual report called the Annual Security Report, to make a lot of key information easily accessible and available, including a daily crime log informing the campus community promptly of certain crimes or hazards, whether it’s through an emergency notification system or timely warnings when certain crimes have occurred. And folks need to be warned so that they might be able to take steps to protect themselves. All of it is generally tied to geography, and, quite frankly, very complicated rules of geography that we won’t go into at the moment. And then we have these 2013 VAWA amendments. As I mentioned, these covers students’ rights and specific steps in adjudication processes that must be followed when investigating and adjudicating cases of sex assault, dating domestic violence, or stalking.

So not everything, it doesn’t match up with the Clery crimes. It doesn’t match up with Title IX. They all, if we made a Venn diagram, they’d all have slightly different circles with a little bit of overlap there. And so Title IX is then another complexity that doesn’t match up perfectly.

Clery covers much more than crimes relating to sex or gender. VAWA covers only a specific handful of crimes, and those are not always tied to sex or gender as, for example, stalking. And then we have Title IX covering sex and gender with an ever-changing set of expectations as to how those cases should be handled.

Keehan: Ooh. Well, thank you for clarifying the differences in interplay VAWA and Title IX. OK. So getting back to our Title IX timeline, things were really starting to heat up after the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter was issued. OCR was stepping up its enforcement around student sexual assault. So what was next?

Shipper: Well, we had the 2001 Dear Colleague Letter and then we get some clarification in 2014. It was a Q&A intended to help schools better understand their obligations that had been set forth in that 2011 Dear Colleague Letter.

We got a lot of specifics that had not been included in the 2011 letter, such as more specifics on when a school is really on notice, what steps you might need to take. Some specific steps as to exactly when a school is going to move a case forward despite a complainant or victim saying, “I don’t want the case to move forward” or “I don’t want my name to be used.”

So we got more specifics. Two big pieces of that document, including little more information setting out a Title IX coordinator’s responsibilities, explaining more about responsible employees, meaning those employees who are required to forward to the Title IX coordinator any complaints they have received. And there was even more in 2015, very specific to the role of the Title IX coordinator.

Keehan: A lot of guidance documents there just covered. I think kind of parallel to the increased focus around Title IX’s application to sexual violence was a movement to expand the meaning of sex under Title IX to protect transgender students. Jody, can you talk a little bit to us about Title IX’s application to transgender issues and where it stands now?

Shipper: Well, certainly this is an evolving issue. This is very much, I think, an important new frontier in Title IX, and we’re going to see a lot of change. We had a ruling on the Title VII side, so employment, civil rights case a few years ago in which the Supreme Court determined that on the basis of sex would apply to gender.

We don’t yet have that same ruling from the Supreme Court, but we do have a statement from the Department of Education that it is their expectation that on the basis of sex, [it] should be interpreted as on the basis of gender just as it is now under Title VII.

At the same time, we have then seen this question, especially involving our trans students become highly politicized and a lot of states jumping in to really talk about how they’re going to define sex and define gender.

And then we’ve had just recently a response from the White House, in the form of an executive order, stating that we should be expecting more guidance on this topic, really looking at how best to protect trans students in their schools despite some of the states’ efforts.

So some of those questions that we have and are continuing to evolve include questions about, for example, bathrooms and changing rooms, whether separate but equal is equal, how to address our trans students in sports, which is also another rapidly evolving area. So all of this is an exciting new frontier. We are certainly despite, 50 years of Title IX, we haven’t solved it.

Keehan: Well, I think that’s a really kind of helpful summary of what’s been occurring. It sounds like there’s a lot more in store here. So you talked about the significance of the 2014 Q&A for Title IX and how it was pretty prescriptive regarding how institutions were required to handle the issue of student sexual assault.

But let’s be clear that the 2014 Q&A and all of the different guidance documents you’ve mentioned, they were just that, guidance, not regulation. Can you talk a little more about the difference between guidance and regulation? Because I think that’s going to be important as we take our Title IX retrospective to the present day.

Shipper: Sure. So these guidance documents all stated that they are not statements of the law. They say that right in there, but significant guidance. That is a term that’s actually defined by the Office of Management and Budget, for those of you who want to go back and do more research and the law nerds out there listening in.

And so specifically when it’s a guidance document and not the law, they cannot add requirements to the law, but can provide information and examples to inform campuses. Really, it’s supposed to be about how OCR would evaluate whether or not a school is complying with their legal obligations.

So in theory, neither the guidance documents nor any Dear Colleague Letter was intended to set out the exact process a school must use when responding to an allegation of sexual assault or sexual harassment. But the result of these documents was that they have very much become a roadmap and a set of standards that schools and those wanting to hold them accountable could use and have used when navigating these cases.

And let me just add, I talked a few minutes ago about the negotiated rulemaking process. So when we then get instead of a guidance document, but something that is the result of negotiated rulemaking, meaning it is published in the Federal Register, there is a period for responding, those comments, then get a response.

And then we get something that is actually published following this negotiated rulemaking process, that has a much greater impact and can be enforced very much differently from anything that did not go through that negotiated rulemaking process.

Keehan: OK. So we have a new presidential administration that enters the scene in 2016 with the intent to really fix all of the Title IX activism that’s been occurring in the form of these guidance documents. So tell us what happens to Title IX sexual harassment under the Trump administration, Jody.

Shipper: So the Trump administration quickly withdrew previous guidance documents that had been in place. If you go now and you go to the Department of Education website, for example, you can find them, but with a big red mark over them, actually, I can’t remember if it’s red or big letter of saying this has been rescinded.

And so the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter and the accompanying 2014 Q&A, those were rescinded really quickly. And then after that, almost all of the other Title IX-related guidance. We had a brief period of time with really almost nothing in place.

And then we had draft regulations — note regulations, not guidance or a letter — published in November, 2018, followed by a notice and comment period. And then they received something like well over 100,000 comments.

All of those comments had to be reviewed, which took a lot of time. And then we got new regulations published in May 2020 that took effect in August 2020. And those regulations with a small exception are in place at the moment.

Keehan: OK. Can you talk to us about some of the key provisions in those 2020 Title IX regulations and how they change things from the prior guidance? And, of course, just a high-level overview of the changes. Since I know those regulations were pretty long, there’s a lot in there, and we don’t have time to cover them all in detail.

Shipper: So you don’t want me to read all 2,000 pages at the moment? So there were some really important, high-level changes. One of which is narrowing or changing the definition of sexual harassment that had been used previously in other guidance documents and letters. So previously, we had had “severe or pervasive.” We moved to “severe and pervasive.”

So as you can imagine, some forms of sexual harassment that might be severe, not pervasive, or pervasive, not severe, would have been considered a violation of Title IX before the May 2020 final regs and would not be considered sexual harassment after. And actually after that implementation date of August 2020.

There is a requirement now of a signed formal complaint, sort of a moment in time when our complainant or complainant victim files a formal complaint with some very limited language around when the Title IX coordinator might be the one to sort of sign a complaint and move a case forward.

There’s the addition of a hearing in higher education, not K-12, but within higher ed mandatory hearings. And then very specific steps that must be taken throughout the process, such as a 10-day evidence review and another 10 days to review the report and so much more.

So a lot of detail about steps that absolutely must be followed once you are within Title IX, which, again, those things falling within Title IX were narrowed somewhat because of the changes in definition.

Keehan: OK. So we’re just about up to the present day. But before we talk about the most recent developments, can you clarify something for me? Does Title IX currently apply to matters involving employees, or is it just students?

Shipper: Well, yes, Title IX does cover employees, but that wasn’t clear initially. And for many years you had to pay attention to the federal courts, whatever circuit you were in. So if you were in the Ninth Circuit or the Fifth Circuit, and as to whether or not those federal courts in your geographical area had decided that employees were or were not covered.

Now one by one, different federal circuits have come round to the position that, yes, employees are covered by Title IX and the regulations also make that clear. But, in fact, it was just recently that the Second Circuit determined that, yes, Title IX applies to employees.

So we can see that this is not a long well-developed way of thinking. So it’s really only now that I can comfortably say, yes, clearly covered everywhere. That would not have been the answer 15 years ago.

Keehan: Thanks. I mean, I think that’s very helpful. So even though those 2020 regs are less than two years old, it doesn’t look like their shelf life is going to be very long, right? Where do things stand now?

Shipper: Well, so new draft regulations will probably be issued by the time this airs. Those are just draft regulations. That’s going to be a signal as to the thinking of the current Department of Education on this topic. There will be some period of time in which the public can offer comments.

And I encourage anyone who wants to do so to absolutely do that. And then we will also get a projected effective date. Now, we’re expecting an enormous volume of comments. And so once they close that notice period, someone’s going to have to read all of them and decide how to respond to all of them and then make any changes to those draft regulations.

And then we will get to our new final rule Title IX regulations, which may or may not have a shelf life of more than two or three more years. So I think everyone should keep every past copy of their policies and procedures. You never know when you’re going to have to bring back something you had put into a binder on your shelf.

Keehan: Good advice. Jody is someone who’s built her career around Title IX and been at the front lines for all of the changes over the last 10-plus years, what do you make of what’s occurred and what would you tell our listeners listening about enforcement areas to watch?

Shipper: Well, as I said a few minutes ago, I do think some of the areas to watch will include working with our transgender students and particularly student-athletes and how we best do that. How to make sure that whatever new regulatory guidance we receive, schools continue to remember that they have to follow not only Title IX, but those VAWA obligations that we talked about a few minutes ago.

Certainly, if rules on hearings were to change at all, we have to figure out how to follow new guidance while also taking into account the case law of each school’s state courts and federal circuit — although it’s debatable how much of state law would come into play, it’s something to pay attention to.

And finally, I would remind schools to think about all these possible changes in the scope of Title IX — meaning if we go back to “severe or pervasive.” At the moment, much off-campus conduct is not covered unless it’s part of a program or activity, but we may go back to looking at off campus conduct that has an impact on the campus experience.

So schools really need to think about, “How are you going to seamlessly address both those cases that fall within Title IX, however it gets defined, and allegations of sexual harassment or related misconduct that might fall outside of any new definition or jurisdictional requirements.”

Keehan: Well, we are about out of time. But I do have one more question for you. Jody, can you summarize the impact Title IX has made in the area of sexual harassment? I mean, from the time you first started your career as a Title IX coordinator and what that landscape looked like at the time to what it looks like now, what kind of difference has Title IX made?

Shipper: You know, a few decades ago when I first started working on Title IX matters, and I have been doing it for several decades, it was not well understood that a college or university had an obligation to address student-on-student harassment and to intervene.

Many faculty members, administrators, and even students felt that students should just work it out themselves. We had no shared understanding of best processes and procedures for responding to reports or for the investigation process.

We didn’t understand how to talk to people in a really appropriate manner who were reporting having been a victim of an act of sexual assault, dating domestic violence, stalking.

So we had to learn all of that. But again, I mentioned this earlier, I think one of the biggest changes has been this growing understanding that the school has the burden to do the hard work of investigating. It was up to the students in the past, and they had to figure it out. And that recognition that the burden is and should be on the school to figure it out, that has really driven a significant amount of change in this field, I think.

Keehan: Well, Jody, this has been so great. And I just want to thank you for joining us for Part 2 of our two-part series, “Title IX at 50.” It has just been such a pleasure.

Shipper: Well, thank you. It’s a big moment for practitioners and really also for those whose lives have changed by the impact of Title IX. And I do think it’s important to take this moment to stop and think about the real goals of doing this work and what an impact it can have.

Keehan: Well, for our listeners, if you haven’t already, please be sure to download and listen to Part 1 in our series on “Title IX at 50,” which covers the law’s impact on athletics.

And I also just want to let our listeners know that in addition to this topic, you can find other podcasts and risk management publications on our website www.ue.org. So just encourage you to go check it out, if you haven’t already. From United Educators Insurance, this is the Prevention and Protection Podcast.