Civil Rights in Education: Understanding and Evaluating Policies, Climate, and the Compliance Team is a one-day course designed for K-12 and higher education professionals responsible for overseeing civil rights compliance. Participants will explore the practical application of federal civil rights laws and principles in education, with an emphasis on developing, revising, and implementing effective policies and procedures. The course also covers strategies for evaluating school/campus climate and leveraging the data to inform prevention efforts and future decision-making.
Participants will explore practical considerations for developing school/campus compliance teams, including training, supervision, and evaluation. The course blends elements of policy development, climate assessment, and team management to optimize school/campus compliance efforts that both meet industry standards and focus on continuous improvement.
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Apply structured approaches to evaluating consent in complaint investigations, including contextual and capacity-related considerations
- Distinguish between “credibility” and “reliability” and use evidence-based methods for assessing both
- Identify common credibility pitfalls (e.g., assumptions, myths, bias, trauma responses) and implement strategies to reduce their influence
- Design questions to elicit evidence specific to identified policy elements
- Recognize retaliation indicators and understand how retaliation complaints differ from underlying discrimination/harassment complaints
- Evaluate discrimination allegations using consistent analytical frameworks (e.g., protected status, adverse action, nexus/causation, comparators)
- Strengthen documentation practices to support defensible determinations and provide clear rationales for findings
- Communicate outcomes and expectations to parties in a manner that is compliant, neutral, and trauma-informed
- Create an action plan to improve institutional consistency and fairness in consent, credibility, retaliation, and discrimination complaint responses
- Compliance and Risk Management Professionals
- Title IX Coordinators
- Title IX or Civil Rights Investigators
- Decision-makers
- Hearing Chairpersons
- Appeal Decision-makers
- Student Conduct Professionals
- Human Resources Professionals
- Legal Counsel
When you register for this course you will receive access to the eTraining pre-learning Civil Rights Fundamentals for Educators. Go to your ATIXA Event Lobby and login. In the lobby, you will see the Civil Rights Fundamentals for Educators eTraining link that you can click on for additional instructions to login and take the eTraining. Contact events@atixa.org with any questions.