On February 11, 1999, Linda Purrington wrote: "... OCR is founded to
administer Title IX, but has never taken away funds from school districts
that refuse to comply with Title IX...." Linda, thank you for the
opportunity to correct a misperception about OCR.
OCR is a law enforcement agency, charged with enforcing Title IX in
education programs and activities that receive federal financial
assistance. (OCR also enforces federal civil rights laws prohibiting
discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, color, disability,
and age.) It is incorrect to imply or infer that OCR does not enforce
Title IX in connection with sexual harassment or any other issues. On
the contrary, OCR is constantly working to ensure that students are not
discriminated against on the basis of sex.
It is a fact that, to date, OCR has not terminated funds from a school
district due to violations of Title IX, but that is only because school
districts have remedied those violations on a voluntary basis. It is
essential to understand that when Congress enacted Title IX, it required
that OCR ensure that compliance cannot be achieved voluntarily before
taking the steps necessary to terminate federal funds from a recipient
for noncompliance. Thus, the reason that OCR has not terminated funds
from any recipient that has violated Title IX is that, consistent with
the Title IX statutory requirement, we have been able to negotiate
voluntary compliance. It is also essential to understand that if OCR
found that a school district or other recipient violated Title IX and
that the school district refused to comply voluntarily, OCR would take
appropriate steps to enforce the law. These further steps to enforce
could include either administrative enforcement, which may result in fund
termination, or referral to the Department of Justice for judicial
enforcement. The fact that OCR has been successful in achieving
voluntary compliance should never be taken as a failure to enforce.
It might be useful to provide at this time some background information
about how OCR resolves complaints. OCR's primary objective in complaint
resolution is to resolve the complainant's allegations of discrimination
promptly and appropriately. OCR has a variety of tools for resolving
complaints. For example, OCR may facilitate a resolution between the
parties (the recipient and complainant), OCR may negotiate an agreement
for corrective action with the recipient, or, where an OCR investigation
establishes that there is a violation and negotiation of voluntary
compliance has been unsuccessful at that stage, OCR will issue a letter
of findings informing the recipient of the violation and move to
enforcement, as described above. OCR uses these approaches to resolve
complaints in order to provide timely and effective intervention at the
beginning of the complaint process, to focus on achieving effective
change, and to make students, parents and school officials central to the
resolution of their own complaints. Anyone interested in more
information about OCR's case resolution process can obtain a summary of
these procedures by contacting any OCR office.
OCR considers the development and implementation of effective corrective
action to be critical to ensuring nondiscrimination. Appropriate
corrective action is tailored to the facts of each case. Examples of
remedial steps that OCR has negotiated in sexual harassment cases
include: development and publication of sexual harassment policies;
adoption and publication of grievance procedures providing for prompt and
equitable resolution of Title IX complaints; training for students,
parents, and staff; and payment of counseling fees for students who were
subjected to harassment.
Doreen Dennis
Attorney, OCR
doreen_dennis@ed.gov
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