| Proposal: | On August 13, 2020, the President approved an interim University of Maryland Policy and Procedures on Sexual Harassment and Other Sexual Misconduct (VI-1.60[A]) to comply with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights’ new Title IX regulations that require all higher education institutions to be in compliance by August 14, 2020. The University System of Maryland (USM) revised its the University System of Maryland Policy on Sexual Harassment (VI-1.60) in July 2020. All system institutions were tasked with revising their policies to align with the USM policy and the new Title IX regulations by August 14, 2020. The revised interim policy meets the required regulations and deadline and was approved by President Pines pending Senate review (See Senate Document #20-21-03).
As a result of the revisions, the name of the Sexual Misconduct Policy was changed so all references to the previous name in other University policies must be updated. The revisions to the University of Maryland Non-Discrimination Policy and Procedures (VI-1.00[B]) reflect the updates to the name of the Sexual Misconduct Policy and updates to a few additional references of University policies and policy links for consistency.
The EDI Committee was charged with a comprehensive review of the Non-Discrimination Policy as part of the recommendations from the Joint President/Senate Inclusion & Respect Task Force (See Senate Document# 18-19-16). Because both the Sexual Misconduct and Non-Discrimination policies are administered by the Office of Civil Rights & Sexual Misconduct (OCRSM), it is important for the policies and their definitions to be aligned. Since the Title IX regulations were forthcoming, the review of the Non-Discrimination policy was delayed until that time.
However, the President’s Office approved to change the Interim Non-Discrimination Policy to a technical revision instead, with the expectation that the policy will be reviewed next 2021-2022 academic year. |
