Advocates Petition for Correction of 2017 Dear Colleague Letter

Several Title IX advocacy organizations have teamed up to petition the Department of Education to correct several unsupported factual assertions contained in its 2017 Dear Colleague Letter withdrawing the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter. They also argue that the 2017 Dear Colleague Letter,  thus rendered baseless, should be rescinded.  

The advocates' petition relies on federal law called the Information Quality Act which, along with related regulatory guidance, requires that information disseminated by federal agencies be useful, accurate, reliable, and unbiased. The statute does not provide for a private right of action. Instead, the mechanism for enforcement is to seek correction from the agency. 

Specifically, the advocates singled out the following statements in the 2017 Letter for being unsupported by evidence, implausible, and biased.

1.“Many schools [before the Prior Guidance] had traditionally employed a higher clear and convincing evidence standard.”

2.“Many schools had previously followed procedures reserving appeal for accused students.”

3.“As a result [of the Prior Guidance], many schools have established procedures for resolving allegations that lack the most basic elements of fairness and due process.”

4.“As a result [of the Prior Guidance], many schools have established procedures for resolving allegations that ... are overwhelmingly stacked against the accused.”

5. The Prior Guidance “led to the deprivation of rights for many students--both accused students denied fair process and victims denied an adequate resolution of their complaints.”

6.The Prior Guidance “has not succeeded ... in leading institutions to guarantee educational opportunities on the equal basis that Title IX requires.” 

Some of the advocates' objection centered on the use of the vague word "many" -- which, they argue, indicates a majority of either the 100,000+ federally-funded educational institutions, or at least, most of the 7000+ institutions of higher education. In fact, the best evidence out there suggests only a handful of schools used the clear and convincing evidence standard or reserved the right to appeal for accused students. The letter also cites empirical research finding that schools more often have procedures that are stacked against complainants rather than accused.  

While many agencies--the EPA for instance--receive many requests for correction, the Department of Education does not often receive them. So past practice is no basis for predicting how seriously the agency will take this request. Still, it seems unlikely that the Department of Education would change course in any meaningful way on the basis of this petition.  The 2017 Dear Colleague Letter is supposed to be a temporary placeholder anyway, until the Department proposes new regulations. My guess is that the dispute over these "facts" is going to merge into the dispute over the basis for those newly proposed regulations. 

Still, this effort is useful, not only to administrative law professors like me, who love examples of the lesser-known requirements of regulatory process, but for its contributions to the foundation of the policy debate that is about to occur. Advocates are warning the Department that there is evidence out there that it needs to contend with as it tries to rationalize whatever new regulations it eventually proposes. And they are suggesting that vague and imprecise generalizations about supposed problems are not going to hold water when it comes time for the agency to defend those newly proposed regulations against charges that they are arbitrary and capricious. The agency is taking its time releasing the draft regulations, but advocates are not waiting to stake out some of their key positions.