In April of 2024, the Department of Education approved New Title IX rules, which are scheduled to take effect on August 1, 2024. Our firm is closely monitoring ongoing challenges to these new rules in court, and is working hard to provide you the most up-to-date information. Click here to learn about the current state of Title IX and how we can help if you are facing accusations.
A college or university can change a respondent's class schedule as an interim measure under the Title IX Final rule. Doing so would be considered a supportive measure to the benefit of the complainant. Supportive measures can be provided to both the complainant and the respondent. In this instance, it would be a supportive measure to the complainant.
That being said, under the Title IX Final rule, before a score to impose any disciplinary sanction or action that would not be a supportive measure, or that would be adverse to a respondent, the school's supposed to follow a Title IX grievance process.
This does come up often enough where a school would try to remove a respondent from a complainant's class so that the complainant does not need to be, say, arguably burdened by having the respondent in the complainant's class. As to if this is appropriate, that's a separate consideration and also in terms of what recourse a respondent has to seek that that matter be reconsidered. If again, it's just based on allegations at that stage, that's a separate consideration yet.
There's so many considerations and nuances in a Title IX case, and each step needs to be calculated and responded to accordingly. Having an experienced attorney-advisor in one's corner from as early as possible in the process will help best protect accused student's rights and interests.