Title IX guidance not optional
The University of Michigan is not following Department of Education Title IX guidance in its response to a complaint by a professor that several university programs explicitly exclude men from consideration.
That’s not his claim – that’s the straight dope from the department’s Office for Civil Rights.
Campus Reform reports that the taxpayer-funded university claimed that because Prof. Mark Perry from its Flint campus didn’t allege personal discrimination, it didn’t need to follow Title IX guidance.
Last month Perry filed an internal complaint citing 11 women-only educational programs (expanded from six) that he believed violated university policy, Michigan law and Title IX.
But Title IX officer Pamela Heatlie – a named defendant in a new due-process lawsuit by an accused student – closed the investigation into Perry’s complaint less than a month later, giving him no “rationale” or appellate procedures for her determination that none of the programs violate Title IX or state law.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights confirmed this violates its Title IX guidance, which is not strictly limited to “Title IX officers investigating sexual misconduct,” according to Campus Reform.
The university at first denied that the guidance applies to complainants who are not alleged victims, such as Perry, and then went dark when Campus Reform informed it that the guidance still applies in cases such as Perry’s.
The professor, an economist and American Enterprise Institute scholar, frequently highlights university programs and benefits that exclude men, and sometimes whites.
His complaint likely played a role in ending the women-only study lounge at Michigan State University and faculty awards limited to women and minorities at his Flint campus.
The College Fix could not immediately reach Perry for comment on his next step or university media relations for comment on its refusal to give Perry a rationale or appellate procedures.
Read the Campus Reform report.
MORE: Perry challenges 6 UMich programs that give ‘preferential treatment’ to women
MORE: Heatlie named defendant in ‘separate and unequal’ due process suit
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