Dr. Amber Culpepper, the Director of Equal Opportunity & Title IX, has claimed that Georgia Southern’s Title IX Office is already in compliance with the 2020 Title IX Rule.

“As stated in the Dear Colleague Letter you referenced, injunctions/court actions prohibited us from implementing the 2024 rule. I want to emphasize that resources and support are available to meet the individual needs of our student,” Dr. Culpepper said in an email in response to the Inkwell.

On Feb. 4, a letter from The Dept. of Education’s Office for Civil Rights was sent to academic institutions that receive federal funding across the country stating, 

“Accordingly, lawful Title IX enforcement includes, inter alia, the definition of sexual harassment, the procedural protections owed to complainants and respondents, the provision of supportive measures to complainants, and school-level reporting processes,” 

The letter orders that institutes forgo the 2024 Title IX Rule in favor of its previous version from 2020 under the Trump administration.

In a clip provided to us by a student who attended an “Understanding Equal Opportunity and Title XI SOLD Workshop Series” on Wednesday, Dr. Culpepper made a statement regarding how the DEI rollback orders will impact the GS Title IX office.

“We actually had stayed under the 2020 regs the whole time. What that means is our policy today is the same that it was in 2020, 2021, 2022. So all of those categories of prohibited conduct have stayed the same. Now, sometimes definitions change and that’s always something we need to worry about in our office. We don’t want you worrying about that,” Dr. Culpepper said. “We have to do a lot of legal analysis, review. That’s our job. What hasn’t changed at all is the support and resources options that are available to anyone on our campus.”

The Feb. 4th  letter was sent days before the “Dear Colleague” letter ordering DEI rollbacks in schools that receive federal funding, which we reported on last week. 

The 2024 Title IX Rule went into effect Aug. 1 under the Biden administration and made changes to definitions of sexual harassment, nondiscrimination policies, new training requirements, pregnancy conditions, formal complaint processes, supportive measures, gender identity and retaliation protocols, according to the National Women’s Law Center.

We will continue to make updates as this story develops.