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.
Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in higher education based on gender or sexual orientation. It was passed in 1972 as a part of the Education Amendments, which rode the momentum of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The core component of Title IX is that it requires schools to take action to prevent and rectify these kinds of discriminations, or else lose federal funding. Because nearly all colleges and universities in the U.S. receive some sort of federal funding – and many of them heavily rely on it – potential violations of Title IX are treated very seriously because they threaten much of a school's budget.
Unfortunately, if you are suspected of discriminatory conduct that implicates Title IX, you can expect your school to overreact.
Title IX and Intercollegiate Sports
The most well known application of Title IX is to intercollegiate sports. Under the law, gender discrimination can happen when athletes of one gender do not have the same opportunities as athletes of the other gender. This effectively requires colleges and universities to offer the same funding, scholarship money, and sports programs to male and female athletes.
Title IX and Sexual Harassment and Misconduct
While the role of Title IX in intercollegiate sports takes most of the headlines in the past, it is far more common for the law to be implicated in allegations of sexual misconduct or employment discrimination on campus.
Under Title IX, sexual misconduct – which includes sexual assault, harassment, violence, and even rape – is considered a form of gender discrimination. As a result, federally funded schools and universities could lose their funding if they do not adequately investigate allegations of sexual misconduct, punish those they find to have committed it through expulsion or termination, and even help the state prosecute suspects for a sex crime.
Defending Against Title IX Charges
This makes Title IX charges very serious: If you have been notified that you are being investigated for a Title IX violation – or even for a breach of your school's code of conduct that could turn into a Title IX violation – it means your school is in a position where they have to choose between your rights and millions of dollars in necessary funding. You can count on them doing all that they can to ensure they keep that funding, especially if your school is a large, public one, like Rutgers.
Newark Title IX Attorney Joseph D. Lento
Joseph D. Lento is a defense attorney for people who have been accused of violating Title IX through sexual harassment or gender or orientation-based employment discrimination. Attorney Lento has represented:
- Students who have been accused of violating the school's code of conduct in a way that could implicate Title IX, and
- School employees who have been accused of discrimination in violation of Title IX.
By fighting for your rights and interests in court, Title IX attorney Joseph Lento can make sure that your version of the story gets heard and that justice is served. Contact him for the defense you need.
The following links provide information regarding how individual North / Central Jersey colleges and universities handle allegations of sexual assault and Title IX sexual misconduct against accused students (New Jersey Title IX campus disciplinary cases generally follow a similar process for both accused students and accused employees depending on the college or university involved):
- Bloomfield College
- Caldwell College
- Centenary College
- College of Saint Elizabeth
- Drew University
- Fairleigh Dickinson University College at Florham
- Fairleigh Dickinson University Metropolitan Campus
- Felician College
- Georgian Court University
- Kean University
- Monmouth University
- Montclair State University
- New Jersey City University
- New Jersey Institute of Technology
- Princeton University
- Ramapo College of New Jersey
- Rider University
- Rutgers University New Brunswick
- Rutgers University Newark
- Saint Peter's College
- Seton Hall University
- Stevens Institute of Technology
- The College of New Jersey
- Thomas Edison State University
- William Paterson University of New Jersey
