Colleges Warned They Will Lose Federal Funding For Botching Campus Rape Cases

Article here. Excerpt:

'Catharine Lhamon, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, told a group of college administrators Monday that she would have no reservations about pulling a university's funding if it showed a pattern of mishandling cases of sexual violence on campus.

Lhamon was speaking at a summit on sexual assault hosted at Dartmouth College, one of the 67 colleges and universities currently under investigation by Lhamon's agency over concerns that they did not properly handle sexual violence cases. Colleges are required under the gender equity law Title IX to address sexual assault and harassment on campus. The ultimate punishment for a school violating Title IX is a complete loss of federal funding. No disciplinary procedure has ever gone that far, but Lhamon emphasized that the option is always on the table.

"Do not think it's an empty threat," Lhamon said Monday. "It's one I've made four times in the 10 months I've been in office. So it's one that's very much in use."
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Lawmakers are considering adding more ways for the OCR to penalize a school for violating Title IX.

"It'd always be nice to have more tools. There's always more we can use," Lhamon said during the panel Monday. "Where I sit today, I think we have a set of very, very effective tools we can use."

Lhamon said the criticism of the OCR's effectiveness investigating colleges was due to a "lack of understanding" about the tools available to the office for sanctioning institutions.'