Congress Will Consider Student-Loan Deferrals for Victims of Sexual Violence

THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION (June 9, 2022) – A bill introduced in Congress on Wednesday would grant students who experience sexual violence federal loan deferments while they are on temporary leave from college for treatment.

Under the Student Loan Deferment for Sexual Violence Survivors Act, HR 7980, students would be eligible for up to three years of federal loan deferrals — broken into six-to-12-month chunks — after reporting an incident of sexual violence to their campus Title IX coordinator.

Most federal student loans come with a six-month grace period that kicks in after graduation or when students take a semester off. But under the current system, even if students need more time to recover from an incident of violence, they must start repaying their loans when those six months expire. … FULL ARTICLE

Attorney Ryan Thompson, currently an Advisory Board member for the Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA), had initially become involved with this legislative initiative as a member of ATIXA some years ago. Last summer, Thompson testified to the U.S. Department of Education on behalf of ATIXA and explained that, “This issue first came to my attention several years ago while I was a University Title IX Coordinator working with and providing support services to a victim of a particularly violent and traumatic sexual assault. The victim was so traumatized that she needed to take a temporary leave of absence from the University, and that leave lasted a little more than 6 months. Around the 6-month mark, the victim contacted me for help, as she had just been notified that interest had begun to accrue on her student loans, and that the federal student loan 6-month grace period that she was supposed to receive after graduation had lapsed during her leave.”

Thompson’s full verbal testimony is available HERE.

Five New ATIXA Advisory Board Members Announced

ATIXA.ORG (November 11, 2021) – ATIXA is pleased to welcome five new members to our Advisory Board. The ATIXA Advisory Board is a strong, representational Board who collaborates to influence guidance and best practices in the field of Title IX. ATIXA relies heavily on our Advisory Board for writing, presenting, advocating, and ensuring that ATIXA provides services, resources, trainings, and memberships that assist all Title IX professionals in both the higher education and K-12 spaces.

Please welcome Kayleigh Baker, J.D., Zakiya Brown, M.Ed., Araiña Muñiz, M.B.A., Ryan Thompson, J.D., and Elizabeth Trayner, Ed.D., as our newest Advisory Board Members for 2021. … FULL ARTICLE

Attorney Ryan Thompson Tells Feds That Title IX Regs Were an ‘Experimental Airplane’

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION (June 8, 2021) – The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) held a virtual public hearing from June 7 to June 11, 2021 for the purpose of improving enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The hearing provided the Department with the opportunity to hear views regarding Title IX from more than 280 students, educators, and other members of the public, spanning a variety of issues, including discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and sexual harassment and sexual violence in K-12 and postsecondary education contexts.

Thompson Esquire PLLC, represented by attorney and Title IX investigator Ryan Thompson, was among those selected to provide verbal testimony. Thompson called the 2020 Title IX Regulations “an experimental airplane that not only was never test flown, but was never even put through the flight simulator.” Thompson’s full verbal testimony is available HERE, and the full volume of all transcripts is available HERE.

In addition, OCR received more than 30,000 written comments as part of the June 2021 Title IX Public Hearing.

Thompson Esquire PLLC provided written testimony (available HERE) to the Department of Education by submitting the below editorial, “The Last Thing Trump’s OCR Said to Me…,” which focuses on the problematic cross-examination procedures and exclusionary rule mandated by the Regs. Several weeks later, a federal court and OCR would agree that the Regs’ all-or-nothing cross examination mandate, which Thompson called a “procedural oddity [that does] not exist in any modern legal system that I am aware of, created as if an experiment is some law school clinic,” was no longer enforceable.

The Last Thing Trump’s OCR Said to Me … And Other Title IX News & Reflections

NY Judge Rules on Title IX Regs Retroactivity

Attorney Ryan Thompson reacts to court’s lack of concern for OCR’s blogging guidance

TIMES UNION, October 26, 2020 — A federal judge has blocked Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from proceeding with a campus sexual misconduct hearing, ruling that the Troy university must decide the case using Title IX procedures enacted over the summer by U.S. Education Secretary Betsy Devos.

[…]

Ryan Thompson, a former Title IX coordinator at Niagara University who is now in private practice, noted that New York schools already deploy a different standard to offenses mentioned in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's "Enough is Enough Act," such as off-campus sexual misconduct, stalking and violence, which are not covered under federal Title IX laws.

The decision in the RPI case, while it may be appealed, reopens the retroactivity question and will inevitably prompt New York institutions to rethink how to proceed with ongoing investigations, according to Thompson.

“It seems like the Department of Education did not foresee the level of unintended complexities these regulations create," Thompson said. "It's as if the department designed a new and experimental airplane on paper, and then mandated all the airlines use it, yet has not only not tested the plane to see if it flies, but hasn't even put it through the flight simulator." … FULL ARTICLE

After a Month of Title IX Turbulence, Questions Still Loom Large for Schools and Universities

THOMPSON ESQUIRE EDITORIAL, September 23, 2020 – It has been a little over a month since the federal government mandated that colleges and K-12 schools be in compliance with the new Title IX Regulations, and so far, from this practitioner’s viewpoint, many of the questions and conundrums that institutions first faced still linger.

While some of us have been obsessed in these Regs from the moment they arrived on our virtual doorsteps back in May, others have set aside the 2,000-page document to perhaps read once the immediate concerns of setting up school amidst a nationwide pandemic were first addressed.

But now students are back on campus, and the cases are coming in. And Title IX Coordinators, College Deans, K-12 Principals and General Counsels are trying to manage the procedural minefield that these Regulations have helped set.

Some institutions that had previously been confident that they fully understood what these new Title IX Regulations require (and thus, what their new policies say) are suddenly realizing that these cases, under these new rules, are far more complex than they first appear on paper – even when it’s 2,033 pages of paper. ... FULL ARTICLE

Changes to Title IX Regulations are another reality colleges must come to grips wiith thiis fall

BUFFALO BUSINESS FIRST, August 21, 2020 – Through the years, attorney Ryan Thompson has learned more than a few things about investigations.

Now a solo practitioner, the Hamburg native started his career as a crime reporter for a Massachusetts newspaper. He went on to law school and most recently was the Title IX coordinator and human rights officer at Niagara University.

In that role, he oversaw dozens of investigations into on-campus sexual misconduct and harassment, which will serve him well as he manages a startup practice in the realm.

“It’s very helpful to be coming from higher education,” he said. “It allows me to truly understand what colleges and universities are going through and some of the everyday considerations that they have as they hire attorneys to do this work.” … FULL ARTICLE