Title IX Basics

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. The Title IX protection against discrimination applies to colleges and universities (schools) that receive federal assistance including by participating in federal student aid programs.

Title IX protects everyone who interacts with a school, including students, employees, and applicants. It protects them from sex discrimination in academics, extracurricular activities, athletics, and other education programs and activities. This protection applies to activities on a school campus or in school buildings or in other locations that are part of a school’s operations, such as on a campus bus, in a school-sponsored class or training program that takes place off campus, or on remote learning platforms. Under Department of Education regulations, Title IX also applies to conduct that occurs in buildings owned or controlled by a student organization that is officially recognized by a college or university or conduct that is subject to a school’s disciplinary authority. Title IX also requires schools to address sex-based hostile environments that occur under their education program or activity, even when some conduct alleged to be contributing to the hostile environment occurred outside the school’s education program or activity or outside the United States. Title IX protects all students in the same way, regardless of citizenship status.

Title IX Requires Colleges and Universities to Respond to Sex-Based Harassment, Including Sexual Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking

Title IX requires all schools to ensure that their education programs and activities operate without sex-based harassment, including sexual violence, and other forms of sex discrimination. The Department of Education’s Title IX regulations define sex-based harassment to include:

• A school employee conditioning an educational aid, benefit or service on your participation in unwelcome sexual conduct (often called “quid pro quo” harassment);
• Unwelcome conduct that is subjectively and objectively offensive and is so severe or pervasive that it effectively limits or denies your ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s education program or activity; or
• Sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, or stalking.

Title IX’s protections apply to all forms of sex-based harassment, regardless of your sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Department of Education’s Title IX regulations provide that if a school has knowledge of conduct that reasonably may constitute sex-based harassment occurring in the school’s education program or activity against a person in the United States, the school must respond promptly and effectively to address such sex-based harassment.

Title IX also prohibits retaliation. This prohibition means that no school or person may intimidate, threaten, coerce, or discriminate against you to interfere with any right or privilege you have under Title IX, or because you have made a report or complaint, testified, assisted, or participated or refused to participate in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under Title IX. If someone threatens you with deportation or talks about your immigration status to intimidate you or deter you from making a Title IX complaint, such conduct may violate Title IX’s prohibition against retaliation.

For more information about Title IX, please see the U.S. Department of Education’s Sex Discrimination: Overview of the Law webpage.