Title IX Information

New Title IX Rules

Tooele Technical College is implementing the new Title IX Rules which became effective August 14, 2020.

Contact the Title IX Coordinator with any questions, complaints or reports of sexual harrassment.

• Contact: Ellen Lange-Christenson, VP Student Services and Marketing / Title IX Coordinator
• Phone: 435-248-1840
• Text: 435-248-2386
• Email: elange@tooeletech.edu
• Office Location:  Student Services
• Office Hours: Monday – Thursday, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

The College’s Title IX Coordinator is responsible for ensuring the school complies with Title IX regulations by responding to all complaints of possible sex discrimination and coordinating proper responses to complaints.

How is the new Title IX regulation different than the old regulation?

The Department of Education states the new regulation will secure due process rights for students who report sexual misconduct and for those accused of it.

Colleges and universities will now be required to allow cross-examination of the complaining and responding parties, as well as any witnesses, during a live hearing led by institution officials. Cross-examination will be conducted by advisers for parties, including legal counsel, but not the parties themselves.

Colleges will be able to determine whether to use a “preponderance of the evidence” or “clear and convincing” standard as a burden of proof and must use the same standard for all complaints, no matter if they involve student or faculty misconduct.

Stalking, domestic violence and dating violence are now officially considered examples of sexual harassment under Title IX.

The definition of sexual harassment is more narrow than previous guidance. It is defined as “any unwelcome conduct that a reasonable person would find so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person equal educational access.” Reports of sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence and stalking do not need to meet the description of “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive.”

If a Title IX coordinator receives multiple informal complaints of harassment against a single respondent, they will not be required to begin a formal complaint process.

Colleges can no longer use a “single investigator model,” which has one official tasked with investigating, adjudicating and issuing disciplinary sanctions against respondents. The regulations instead require three separate officials to work through separate pieces of a single Title IX complaint process: a Title IX coordinator, who receives reports of sexual misconduct; an investigator, to gather facts and interview parties and witnesses; and a decision maker/hearing officer, to determine sanctions and remedies for parties.

Colleges must train all personnel involved in the Title IX process and publish training materials on their websites. Training must involve review of the new rule’s definition of sexual harassment and the scope of the application of Title IX to college programs and activities, how to conduct a formal or informal process, and how to “serve impartially,” including avoidance of “prejudgment of the facts at issue, conflicts of interest, and bias.”

Title IX processes may be conducted virtually, and staff must be trained on relevant technology to conduct remote investigations and hearings. Live hearings will be recorded, by transcript or audiovisually, and will be made available to parties and maintained in college records for at least seven years.

Colleges must provide evidence related to allegations to parties and advisers at least 10 days prior to requiring a response, and parties will not be prohibited from speaking about the allegations.

Colleges are not obligated to follow a specific time frame for responding to reports of sexual misconduct. They are instead required to have “reasonably prompt” periods for carrying out each step in the Title IX complaint process.