As of Fall 2025, the USF Title IX office updated its policy and regulations in accordance with federal and state laws to ensure the safety and security of our campus.
Title IX is an extension of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, ratified in 1869, which entails that no state “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Title IX expanded this definition and is stated by law as “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Title IX of the Civil Rights Act was signed into law on June 23, 1972, by President Richard Nixon. It was then implemented into every educational institution receiving federal assistance, including USF, by 1975 through the Department of Education.
USF’s Title IX office has stood as a vital resource for students on campus, advocating for and protecting all students in accordance with federal and state laws. The office has updated its policy for 2025, as a result of a commitment to continued compliance with the law, which is updated frequently depending on “laws that may have changed at the state and federal levels. Typically, a President’s administration will develop its own interpretation of Title IX,” USF’s Title IX coordinator Emily Grove said. However, given that much hasn’t changed since 2020 under the first Trump administration, the policy change wasn’t drastic, but it includes “updated language for responsible employees on campus, formally known as mandatory reporters, who have the obligation to share any information related to potential policy violations with our office. We have rolled out a new webpage specifically dedicated to training our responsible employees, all professors, staff, librarians, and some student employees, like RAs or CAs,” Grove said.
Beyond this, the Title IX office has updated one of the USF-specific office policies, making sexual violence training mandatory university-wide to be completed once every year. “This new training was created to achieve compliance with a new California law,” Grove said. “To make it accessible, the office has two options for students to complete this training, one being an online training module and the other being an in-person workshop with our REPS interns and REPS Advisory Board members that students can take,” she said.
Although federal requirements have pushed toward laws that diminish the value of Title IX, like Executive Order 14168 implemented on Jan. 20, 2025, which aims to roll back protections for nonbinary, transgender and intersex people. The order directs the Department of Education to refer to “sex” strictly as the biological sex assigned at birth. California has passed multiple laws in the last year to protect LGBTQ+ students and strengthen sexual violence prevention, like the SAEFTY Act (AB1955), Education Code (Section 218.3),and SB 493, all in which strengthen the office’s ability to be more equitable, as compared to the federal government’s policies. “It is a priority to ensure that all students are protected by Title IX. ” Grove said. “It is helpful to think of the federal requirements as the floor and not the ceiling. We are permitted to go above and beyond what is required of us at a federal level.”
Given this, the office prioritizes confidentiality to ensure students of all situations and backgrounds feel safe and protected, as “any and all information shared with our office is private and protected by the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA. Our office is unable to comment on current cases or disclose information. This applies even to students’ own families, without the student’s expressed consent,” Grove said.
Therefore, in the event that something occurs, reporting and submitting a notice to the Title IX office is safe and beneficial, as “receiving reports/information is the only way we know who needs support,” Grove said.
Title IX will continue to be updated accordingly every year based on state and federal laws.The Title IX office is located at Lone Mountain 145. If you are seeking assistance or wish to report an incident to the Title IX office, you can file a report online at https://myusf.usfca.edu/title-ix, or talk to a confidential resource like CAPS, an off-campus resource, or a responsible employee like a USF professor, staff member or RA.
