In Response to the Department of Education's Title IX Proposal

January 31, 2019

As a member of the Association of American Universities and in the American Council on Education, Columbia wants to be sure our community is aware of the comments submitted by both organizations.    

Throughout Columbia’s extensive work on gender-based misconduct prevention and response, the University is deeply committed to supporting all of our students and providing a process for responding to reports of gender-based misconduct that is fair to all students and sensitive to the issues involved.  As the AAU and ACE comments explain, some of the Department’s proposed changes to Title IX would impede these efforts. 

The AAU and ACE have expressed particular concern about new provisions that, if adopted, would require colleges and universities to have adversarial, court-room like hearings.  The proposed new cross-examination rule, in the AAU’s words, “is likely to chill participation by student complainants, witnesses, and respondents.”  You can find the AAU and ACE comments and more information here:

 

With continuing commitment to all in our University community,

Suzanne B. Goldberg
Executive Vice President for University Life

(Professor Goldberg, in her capacity as a Professor of Law and director of the Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law and its Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic, discusses the proposed cross-examination requirement in this opinion piece.   The views expressed by Professor Goldberg in this article are solely her own.)