Nicki Moore, senior associate athletic director, said after Barack Obama became president the Office for Civil Rights issued a “Dear Colleague” letter that essentially set up more requirements to claiming compliance.
“It used to be, for example, the only thing you would have to do to claim compliance is to administer a survey — even if it’s not even a good survey,” Moore said.
She said an interdisciplinary committee, formed in spring 2016, is working on the comprehensive review to be completed in 2017.
Moore said the process of reviewing for Title IX compliance is not required, but UNC is completing the review as risk management.
“This is essentially kind of like an audit,” she said. “It’s a way of assessing where our areas of risk might be and so the risk comes in when whether or not someone wants to file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights and if the Office for Civil Rights then wants to investigate it, that becomes the risk.”
The “Dear Colleague” letter, issued in 2010, created a three-part test to consider if an institution is “effectively accommodating the athletic interests and abilities of students of both sexes.”
“It’s a fairly complex set of guidelines,” Moore said. “There are several different parts of Title IX. There’s a participation part, there’s a financial aid component and then there’s the laundry list component.”
As part of the participation component, UNC sent out a survey to female students pertaining to their past, current and future interest in sport participation. The responses assess whether or not current varsity programs are meeting the interests and abilities of the underrepresented sex.
