What is Title IX and how does it protect students from sex-based discrimination at school?

While many may be familiar with Title IX mainly for its impact on increasing girls’ and women’s access to school sports, the 51-year-old federal law covers much more ground. Its broad wording made sex-based discrimination illegal in educational institutions or activities that receive federal dollars.

That includes public K-12 institutions, public universities and private graduate schools.

According to the law, students, faculty, staff and campus visitors are protected from gender- or sex-based harassment or assault, domestic violence, stalking, voyeurism, and more.

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Maha Ibrahim, senior attorney for California-based women’s rights nonprofit Equal Rights Amendment, said that although the U.S. Department of Education is the primary investigator, any federal agency that gives money to an institution subject to Title IX may investigate claims of a Title IX violation.

Additional institutions and activities – including religious schools, private undergraduate institutions, and even the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, as well as others – have varying levels of exemptions from Title IX.

Ibrahim added that Title IX is a right, and sets the base level for what is appropriate in school.

“Title IX is the floor,” she said, not the ceiling. Schools can certainly exceed Title IX regulations.

“It’s a civil right,” she said.

After its 1972 publication, Title IX dramatically increased women’s participation in education by removing admission caps for women, prohibitions on which classes or subjects women could study, and admission requirements demanding women attain higher test scores than men in order to gain entry to institutions.

The Biden Administration also proposed expanding the definition of the law in 2021 to cover gender identity and sexual orientation, protecting transgender and nonbinary people from discrimination in these same spaces.

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Among other things, the Biden Administration's rule changes are expected to:

• Expand the definition of sexual harassment, decreasing the threshold for what schools are required to investigate.

• Add protections for pregnant and parenting students.

• Ax a requirement for live hearings in college and university cases involving sexual misconduct that could allow survivors to be interrogated by friends and family members of the accused.

• Require schools to use a "preponderance of evidence" standard instead of a "clear and convincing evidence" standard in determining the outcome of most sexual assault cases.

According to Ibrahim, while under the Trump Administration, the definition of complainant was narrowed, as were the circumstances in which a complaint could be investigated, the administration set into place for the first time an investigative process.

Although the Biden Administration’s rules are not yet final, she noted that Biden had re-expanded the definition of complainant and what could be investigated, but was keeping in place the addition of an investigative process.

I’m experiencing sex- or gender-based harassment at school. What are my options under Title IX?

First, find your Title IX coordinator. If you can't find the information online, an administrator should be able to point you in the right direction, or help you complete a complaint form. (You can also fill out a complaint form yourself and send it directly to the U.S. Department of Education.)

Once you approach your school's Title IX coordinator, you have a choice between a formal investigation and an informal resolution. A formal investigation will see you, your harasser, and any potential witnesses interviewed.

An informal resolution is an instance where your school uses a non-investigative method to broker a deal between you and your harasser. For example, you might request your harasser attend a sexual harassment training in lieu of the school launching a formal investigation.

The laws vary state-to-state, but in Florida, for example, every adult, even those that don't work in education or the medical field, is a mandatory reporter. That means they have to report suspected abuse, abandonment or neglect of a minor, which includes sexual abuse or assault, dating violence or domestic abuse to the Department of Children and Families, or local law enforcement.

They do not, however, need to report harassment that does not rise to the level of a criminal report. Unwanted comments on your body are an example of harassment that would fall under Title IX, but would not rise to the level of a criminal complaint or a report to DCF.

Under Title IX, schools are required to provide support to people who report that they have been assaulted or harassed, even if the investigation is ongoing or the school is not investigating at all.

Supportive measures can include switching classes, buses, getting you an escort around campus or prohibiting communication between you and the harasser. If your harasser does not attend or work at the school, they can be banned from stepping foot on campus.

If your harasser is an adult at school, you can request they be placed on administrative leave while the investigation is conducted.

More serious measures such as removing a harasser from leadership activities, expelling them from school or firing them can be taken once an investigation is concluded.

Educational institutions may also have non-Title IX policies in place for addressing sexual harassment in cases where the institution is not subject to Title IX or an interaction does not fall under the law. They also might refer potential complainants to local law enforcement.

You can also choose to make a confidential report to get supportive measures only. This will not result in an investigation or an informal resolution.

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: What is Title IX and how does it protect from discrimination?