Bryan Cave Sports Lawyer Sarah Hartley Shares Insights About Title IX Changes on Radio Show

Bryan Cave Partner Sarah Hartley was interviewed by Sports Byline USA concerning Title IX and President Joe Biden’s executive orders that could point to significant changes for institutions of higher education.

As one of his first acts as president, Biden issued an executive order on preventing and combating discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. On March 8, Biden issued another executive order making clear that the expanded understanding of what constitutes sex discrimination will apply in the context of Title IX, and that a systemic review of the rules adopted under the Trump administration will be undertaken.

“Title IX has gone a really long way toward helping in gender parity in terms of providing additional opportunity for women in sport,” Hartley said. “The law itself is basically a single sentence so the question is really how are the rules and regulations that implement Title IX going to be drafted, and I think there’s plenty of room for improvement… I think there will be a middle ground where we’ll see some type of heightened procedural protections for all parties in the disciplinary process, but maybe not what appears to be a full-blown quasi-judicial hearing on campus.”