The U.S. Justice Department recently sued Maine, alleging the state is violating Title IX by “discriminating against women by failing to protect women in women’s sports.” Title IX aims to prevent sex-based discrimination in education, but different administrations have taken different interpretations of what that means and what constitutes discrimination.
Tammi Walker, an associate professor of law and psychology at the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law, joined The Show to discuss the state of Title IX.
Full conversation
TAMMI WALKER: I think I would describe it as a state of confusion, in a state definitely of uncertainty at the moment.
MARK BRODIE: How so?
WALKER: Well, we aren't exactly sure what will be the result of the president's executive order that purports to dismantle the Department of Education.
BRODIE: How important is that particular agency to receiving and investigating complaints based on Title IX?
WALKER: It is very important. So the, well, actually, can I just say that the executive order was issued on March 20, 2025. We haven't really had any sort of commentary since then regarding how that's actually going to affect the Department of Education. What we do know is that there have been layoffs and that they're reduced workforce, but we don't know how exactly how it's going to affect the operation of the Department of Education, particularly as it relates to Title IX.
BRODIE: Well, in terms of even just as you mentioned, a reduction in workforce, do we have a sense of any of those folks who have lost their jobs have been compliance officers or folks who've investigated complaints?
WALKER: I don't, I'm not sure that it's clear exactly who the workers were that were laid off other than those people who were provisional employees, but what I can tell you is that Title IX is largely enforced via complaints. That means that students or somebody who is a part of an educational program or activity would report that that educational program or activity did not comply with Title IX.
And then, the Department of Education is the agency that would most likely investigate that failure to comply with Title IX. Right now, the average length of an investigation or the case duration is 6.2 years. I'm assuming that we can expect, given that the workforce has been halved, that that duration is going to be even longer.
BRODIE: How does that length of time that it takes to investigate a complaint, how does that compare with what it's been, you know, in the recent past or maybe even a little bit further back than that?
WALKER: Well, the short answer is we don't know. What we know is that the transparency with respect to investigations, with respect to who was being investigated and for what and for how long was really instituted under the Obama administration. They created a public website that showed all of that information and then basically publicly admitted to how long each investigation was taking in the actual results of that investigation.
In 2018, however, the Trump administration decided to end that website and in the process of being forthcoming with that information. And so, the only way that we have any sort of information regarding which schools or programs are being investigated and how long these investigations takes is through Freedom of Information Act requests, and right now those are being collected by the Chronicle of Higher Education and posted on their website.
BRODIE: So, do we have a sense then of like what kinds of complaints are being filed? Like what folks are alleging is happening in terms of not complying with Title IX?
WALKER: That information is not available on the Chronicle of Higher Education's investigation tracker, so we don't know exactly what sort of cases they are currently trying to resolve or that remain open.
BRODIE: Do we have historical data like when that, when the Obama era website was up, did that track the kinds of the kinds of complaints, the kinds of incidents that were prompting complaints?
WALKER: Well, we, what we do know is that what changed as part of the Obama administration was a focus on a student, on student sexual harassment, and the most recent guidance when it comes to the scope of Title IX that we've seen and sort of even the litigation associated with it, has been related to sexual harassment. So we can expect that a good number of those complaints are related to that.
However, Title IX is broader than just covering things like sexual harassment. It also includes sports and sex-based discrimination as as it relates to admissions, testing, all kinds of things, so long as they are gender-based.
BRODIE: Right. Well, it's interesting you brought up sports. Because I think for a lot of folks when they hear Title IX, that's the first thing they think of, right? It's like, it requires universities to increase the number in many cases of women's sports they have. And of course right now with all the conversation about transgender rights and women's sports, it seems like for a lot of folks that is sort of what they know of Title IX, but as you said, it's a lot more than even just that.
WALKER: Yes, the main text of Title IX is basically 37 words that haven't changed since the act was enacted in 1972. What has changed is the interpretation of that language. So what does it mean to have a sex-based discrimination? What we see under the Obama administration is emphasis on, again, like sexual harassment. We see then the Trump administration come in with what we call formal regulations, so actual regulations that have the force of law, sort of narrowing that definition of sexual harassment, and then we have the Biden administration expanding that definition again.
But ultimately, we have had a series of lawsuits filed in federal court by conservative states, and in January of this year, the entirety of the 2024 final regulations enacted under the Obama administration were vacated. So we are currently under the 2020 final regulations that were instituted by the Trump administration.
BRODIE: What does it mean for Title IX that, as you say, you know, we're sort of in a period of uncertainty, it's taking a while for investigations to be completed. Like, what does that mean for, for Title IX and people who feel like they might be victims of its noncompliance?
WALKER: So, with respect to being in a state of flux or knowledge in terms of how we're supposed to interpret that idea of sex-based discrimination, the issue is that the formal regulation process, which we saw happen under the first Trump administration, takes approximately three years, and by the time they were actually instituted and enacted under the Trump administration, very shortly afterwards we had a presidential election and Biden was elected, so there was a very limited period of time in which we were under those 2020 regulations before the new administration took office and then decided to reinterpret everything that had happened under that previous three-year period.
Then, once the Biden administration took office, they decided to reevaluate and determine which of the 2020 regulations they wanted to be able to implement or revise, they again had to go through this formal we call notice and comment period that took another three years.
So, under that three-year period, we are essentially under interim rules without any sort of clarity with respect to what are Title IX violations. And again, what we have is the final regulations that were supposed to take effect on Aug. 1, 2024. Conservative states sued in order to block the enactment of those final regulations, and then we had a presidential election in November of 2024. So, all of those things led up to the 2024 final regulations, even after a three-year period, never really taking effect across the United States.
