UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

OFFICE FOR CfVIL RIGJ-ffS 

THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY 

August 23, 2018 

Jesse I Jahnel 

Executive Director 

National Center for Youth Law 

405 14th Street, I 5th Floor 

Oakland, CA 94612 

Karianne Jones 

Counse l 

Democracy forward f oundation 

1333 H Street, NW 

Washington, DC 20005 

Mr. Hahne] and Ms. Jones: 

This letter responds to your June 27, 2018 Information Quality Act Request ([QA Request) 

regarding the 2017 Dear Colleague Letter (2017 DCL) issued by the U.S. Department of 

Education (Department), Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The 20 17 DCL withdrew earlier OCR 

guidance on Title IX and sexual violence 1

, and referenced a Q&A on campus sexual misconduct, 

issued contemporaneously with the DCL. 

The Department is committed to ensuring that the infonnation it disseminates and uses for 

policymaking purposes is both useful and accurate. In 2002, in response to the Information 

Quality Act (IQA), the Department adopted its Information Quality Guidelines (the Guidelines) 

to describe the Department's policies and procedures for reviewing and verifying the quality of 

information disseminated to the public.2 The Guidelines were developed in conformance with 

the Office of Management and Budget's (0MB) published guide lines, and were approved by 

0MB. 

The Guidelines place the burden of proof on the party seeking a correction of information. 

Specifically, the Guidelines require: 

• A detailed description of the information that the requestor be lieves does not comply with 

the Department's or 0MB's guidelines, including the exact name of the data collection or 

report, the d isseminating office and author, if" known, and a description of the specific 

item in question; 

1 Specifically, the Dear Colleague Leller on Sexual Violence, dated April 4, 2011, and the 2014 Questions and 

Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence, dated April 29, 2014. You refer to these documents as " Prior Guidance" 

in your IQ/\ Request. 

~ https://www2.ed. gov/ pol icy/gen/gu id/ ig/ in fogualgu ide.pd t: 

-100 MARYLAND AVE. S.W., WASHINGTON, DC 20202-1100 

www.ed.gov 

The Department ofEducation's mission is to promote student achievementand preparation for global competitiveness 

by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. 
• Potential impacts on the requestor from information identified for correction (i.e., 

describe the requcstor's interest in the information and how the requestor is affected by 

the infom1ation in question); and 

• An explanation of the reason(s) that the information should be corrected (i.e., describe 

c learly and specifically the elements of the information guide lines that were not 

fol lowed). 

In your !QA Request, you indicate that the 2017 DCL does not comply with the Department's 

Guidelines because it contains "various factual assertions about procedures that schools use or 

have used to resolve Title IX complaints," and includes no citations for these assertions.

3 In 

particular, in your IQA Request, you reference six statements from the 2017 DCL that you state 

" purport to contain factual information about what schools were doing prior to 2011 or that the 

Prior Guidance ' result[ed]' in or ' led to' particular effects."

4 You request that the Department 

first correct the 20 17 DCL by " retracting the assertions containing unsupported factual 

infom1ation," and then "funwind[ ...] the rescission altogether" because the dec ision to withdraw 

the Prior Guidance, as announced in the 20 17 DCL, was based on " unsupported factual 

information."

5 We have carefull y reviewed your correction request, and decline to either amend 

or withdraw the 2017 DCL and, furthem1ore, decline to reverse the rescission of the Prior 

Guidance. 

Prior to the issuance of the 20 17 DCL, Department leaders engaged in ongoing discussions with 

students, parents, survivors, accused students, school administrators, advocacy groups, attorneys, 

and policy experts to learn about their experiences with Title IX, and to hear their views on how 

best to assist schools in fulfilling their obligations under Title IX.6 In addition to engaging in 

these listeni ng sessions, the Department a lso considered a wide range of other materials, 

including Title IX case resolutions, federal case law, and reports and recommendations issued 

over the past several years by legal scholars, commentators, and organizations.7 After 

3 IQA Request at I. 

~ Id. at 4. 5 Id. at 9. 6 See. e.g., Department or Education press release announcing Title IX listening sessions (July 13, 20 17), 

h tips:/ /www.ed.gov/news/press-re leases/sec retary-devos-host-t itle-i x-1 i sten ing-sess ions. 7 See, e.g., Doe v. Brandeis Univ., 177 F.Supp.3d 561 , 572 (D. Mass.2016) (noting that "substantially spurred by 

lOCR]," universities nationwide " have adopted procedural and substantive policies intended to make it easier for 

victims of sexual assault to make and provide their claims and for the schools to adopt punitive measures in 

response" and finding that Brandeis "appears to have substantially impaired, if not eliminated, an accused student's 

right to a fair and impartial process."); Open Letter from Members ofthe Penn Law School Faculty, Sexual Assault 

Complaillls: Protecting Complainants and the Accused Students al Universities. Wall St. J. Online (Feb. 18, 2015), 

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20 15 02 18 upenn.pdf(exprcssing concern that universities fe lt 

pressured by OCR to adopt procedures that do not alford fundamental fairness and specifically noting that the 

hearing process adopted by Penn falls short of ensuring fundamental fairness); Jacob Gerson and Jeannie Suk, The 

Se.x Bureaucracy, 104 Calif. L. Rev. 881 (2016); ABA Criminal Justice Section Task Force on College Due Process 

Rights and Victim Protections: Recommendations for Colleges and Universities in Resolving Allegations ofCampus 

Sexual Misconduct (June 2017) at 3, 

https://www .americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publ icat ions/criminal just ice/20 17 / A BA-Due-Process-Task-F orccRecommendat ions-and-Report.authcheckdam .pd f ( noting that "courts across the country have started finding that 

aspects ofthe procedures and practices used at a number ofschools to investigate and adjudicate reports ofsexual 

misconduct violate principles of fundamental fairness, and in the case of public institutions, procedural due 

process"); American College ofTrial Lawyers Task Force on the responses of Universities and Colleges to 
considering these and other materia ls, as well as the views of many interested parties, the 

Department made the decision to issue the 2017 DCL and engage in a rulemaking process. 

Separately, your IQA Request references four statements that use the phrase "many schools" and 

alleges that these statements are incorrect because the term "many" means a large percentage 

figure or a majority.

8 Specifically, your IQA Request a lleges that these statements in the 2017 

DCL impliedly reference "schools numbering in the thousands, or even the majority of such 

schools."

9 Similarly, your IQA Request also references a statement in the DCL that uses the 

phrase "many students". 10 However, you cite to no definition codified by either the Department 

or 0MB for the term "many," and the 201 7 DCL never uses the term majority. 

Appeal 

You may file an appeal of this response within thirty (30) calendar days of your receipt of this 

response. If you choose to submit an appeal, you must include a copy of your initial !QA 

Request, a copy of this decision, and a letter explaining why you believe the Department's 

decision was inadequate, incomplete, or in error. The appeal may be sent to: 

Chief Privacy Officer 

Office of Management 

U.S. Department ofEducation 

RE: Information Qua lity Request 

Room 2£215, LBJ 

400 Maryland Avenue, SW 

Washington, DC 20202 

Alternatively, you may email an appeal to the following address: 

OMinformation0ualityRcguest@ed.gov. [f sending by email, please indicate that you are 

submitting an Information Quality Appeal in the subject line of the e-mail, and include all 

information specified for an appeal submitted by regular mail. 

Thank you for playing a role in ensuring the Department's information quality. If you have any 

questions, please feel free to contact OCR at (800) 421-3481 or via email at ocr@ed.gov. 

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights 

Allegations ofSexual Violence, White Paper on Campus Sexual Assault Investigations (March 20 17) at 18. 

h ttps ://www.actI.com/docs/ de fauI t-source/defau 11-docu m ent-1i brary/pos ition-slatemen ts-and-whitepapers/task force allegations of sexual violence white paper final.pdf (expressing the beliefthat "OCR has 

imposed on colleges and universities an investigative and adjudicative system that docs not ensure basic fairness for 

all students" and advocating for "a system that encompasses essential elements of fa irness."). 8 IQA Request at 5. 9 Id. 

10 Id. at 6.