Insights & News

What is a No Contact Order?  A no contact order, or NCO as a Title IX attorney may call it, is a preliminary administrative action a school may take to prevent Title IX parties from contacting one another. It may be one-way (usually preventing the Respondent from contacting the Complainant) or mutual (preventing both the Respondent and Complainant from contacting one another). No contact orders are usually entered at the beginning of a Title IX process and should be taken very seriously as a violation of a no contact order may result in sanctions.   What does a No Contact Order […]

Title IX relates to college athletics.  While Title IX’s original purpose when it was enacted in 1972 was mainly to expand women’s access to athletic opportunities in college, its scope has been massively expanded. Today, one of the primary roles of Title IX is to ensure schools equitably adjudicate sexual misconduct complaints.  2. All Title IX victims are female.   The CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2010-2012 State Report, released in 2017, indicates the following self-report statistics regarding male victims of sexual abuse:  “Made to penetrate” offenses (wherein a male was forced to penetrate an offender): 1.7 million […]

DO review the Notice of Investigation thoroughly, paying particular attention to the date(s) and potential policy violation(s). DON’T contact the Complainant. This could expose you to a no-contact order violation and is NEVER a good idea. DO read your school’s policy, paying particular attention to your school’s Title IX procedures as well as the applicable definitions or descriptions of the alleged policy violations. DON’T contact witnesses yourself. Have your advisor or private investigator contact witnesses. If you are unable to afford a hired advisor or private investigator and must contact witnesses yourself, DON’T discuss the facts with them. Keep the […]

By Lindsay McKasson                    Depending on the facts and circumstances of the situation, you may be entitled, and indeed it may require good strategy, to cross complain against the complainant in a Title IX proceeding. For instance, if you were under the influence at the time of the alleged encounter, it may be the case that you were unable to consent to a sexual encounter. Another example is if you said “no” or “I do not want to” and the complainant continued to try to engage in sexual activity with you despite […]