Risa L. Lieberwitz, Professor of Labor and Employment Law at Cornell University and General Counsel of the American Association of University Professors, will visit WMU on Friday, September 16. She will be the featured speaker at the WMU-AAUP New Faculty and Association Council Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. and later on the 16th will present “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX” in a public presentation at 4 p.m. Both events will be in 157 Bernhard.

Click to enlarge flier.

Professor Lieberwitz chaired the committee that produced the new AAUP report on the history and current uses of Title IX, a joint project of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the Committee on Women in the Academic Profession.

As the executive summary notes,

The report identifies tensions between current interpretations of Title IX and the academic freedom essential for campus life to thrive. It finds that questions of free speech and academic freedom have been ignored in recent positions taken by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Education, which is charged with implementing Title IX, and by university administrators who are expected to oversee compliance measures.

While successful resolutions of Title IX suits are often represented as unqualified victories in the name of gender equality, this report finds that the current interpretation, implementation, and enforcement of Title IX has compromised the realization of meaningful educational goals that lead to sexually safe campuses. Since 2011, deployment of Title IX has also imperiled due-process rights and shared governance. This report thus emphasizes that compliance with the letter of the law is no guarantee of justice, gendered or otherwise.