All K12 and higher education institutions are federally required to identify a Title IX Coordinator, but the person in the position should never act as a team of one.
Coordinators, Deputy Coordinators, hearing panel members, appeal officers, investigators, and additional stakeholders all serve as invaluable members of a successful team, and their training creates the foundation of a strong Title IX process.
Who Should be Trained in Title IX?
Several institutional partners must be trained in Title IX including faculty and staff, investigators, and decision-makers. Each of these groups plays an impactful role in maintaining a safe and inclusive environment free from discrimination and harassment.
Faculty and Staff
Educators and support staff interact directly with students, making them frontline responders to potential discrimination and harassment. Training for faculty and staff should cover recognizing signs of sexual misconduct, responding appropriately to disclosures, and fulfilling mandatory reporting requirements.
Current Title IX rules specify that officials with “actual knowledge” of sexual harassment must respond promptly in a manner that is not “deliberately indifferent.” However, not all staff and faculty must act as required Title IX reporters. Incoming regulations may broaden required reporting roles.
Title IX Team Members
While Title IX Coordinators are responsible for managing cases and overseeing compliance efforts, they should not serve in other roles within an investigation.
Hearing officers, investigators, appeal officers, and advisors must act separately from the Coordinator (while still being connected to the role) and complete their own training. Current regulations ban the single investigator model, but this could change in updated rulings, allowing Coordinators to also investigate cases.
What Topics Should Title IX Training Cover?
Comprehensive Title IX training should equip participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to address and prevent discrimination and harassment, while maintaining federal compliance. Key areas of focus include:
Understanding Title IX
Anyone completing training should learn the scope and requirements of Title IX, definitions of sex discrimination, and importance of federal compliance. An important part of understanding Title IX includes being familiar with the jurisdictional requirements and limitations as well.
Recognizing Sexual Misconduct
Training should explain various forms of sexual misconduct, including sexual harassment, assault, dating violence, and stalking, and explain how these behaviors can create a hostile educational environment.
Reporting and Response
Everyone at educational institutions should be familiar with reporting and response procedures for Title IX complaints, including how to report incidents, support options available to survivors, and an overview of the investigative process.
Understanding how to process reports in a trauma-informed manner is also an important component of Title IX response, but currently this type of training is not required under the regulations.
Cultural Competency
Training programs should address issues of cultural competency and intersectionality to ensure that responses to Title IX complaints are sensitive to the diverse needs and experiences of all individuals, including those from marginalized communities.
Implications for Title IX Coordinators
As schools prepare for incoming federal changes under the Biden administration, training Title IX team members is a critical step. Coordinators must consider their current team, recruit additional members if needed, and take proactive steps to prepare them in ensuring institutional compliance.
How We Can Help
For up-to-date information on all Title IX changes and how they affect you and your institution, join us for Title IX Thursdays on the first Thursday of every month.
To prepare your entire Title IX team, see our training options.
For more information about our Title IX consulting services, including advising, hearing adjudication, and investigation, contact us at info@titleixconsult.com