(The Center Square) – Attorneys General from 19 states and the District of Columbia filed an amicus brief this week with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a class-action case titled Hunter v U.S. Department of Education.
The 19-state coalition, led by way of Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, filed the brief in response to their interpretation of Title IX, a legislation that forestalls intercourse discrimination in federally funded faculties.
The brief argues {that a} 2020 rule alternate referring to how the federal government translates Title IX is invalid.
The politicians strengthen scholars who filed a lawsuit to oppose imposing a non secular exemption for portions of the legislation.
“When Congress enacted Title IX, it included a narrow exemption for schools controlled by religious institutions that have tenets incompatible with Title IX,” a press liberate from Rosenblum’s administrative center mentioned. “However, during the Trump administration, the Department of Education used administrative rulemaking to vastly expand this narrow religious exemption.”
A brand new rule that got here below the Trump management made it harder for college kids to inform which faculties declare a non secular exemption, Rosenblum’s administrative center claimed within the liberate.
The Department of Education removed a demand that colleges inform the Office for Civil Rights in writing that they plan to invoke a non secular exemption.
“During the Trump administration, his Department of Education gutted protections for women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and other classes of students that had been in place for four decades,” Attorney General Rosenblum mentioned. “Title IX needs to be strengthened, not systematically weakened. Students ought to know before they get to campuses whether their academic institutions will protect their rights or undermine them.”
The Attorneys General mentioned they would like scholars to know if their faculty is claiming a non secular exemption into such issues earlier than such an incident happens.
They wrote within the brief that scholars “…should not have to wait until after they become a victim of discrimination to learn that their school considers itself exempt from Title IX’s anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and anti-retaliation rules. Nor should schools be allowed to wait to assert their exemption from Title IX until after a complainant comes forward with an allegation.”
Attorneys General who signed the brief are from: California, Colorado, (*19*), the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
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