“Vague policy guidance leaves schools with wide latitude in developing and implementing grievance procedures for resolving sexual harassment complaints” and produces difficulties for a victim filing a complaint against a school in violation of these requirements because of lack of clarity as to what constitutes as a violation (Walker 2010). Title IX does not set specific standards on how to prevent campus sexual assault, support survivors, and settle sexual harassment complaints in a prompt and equitable fashion. The amendment provides no guidelines on what constitutes a prompt and effective response to peer sexual harassment
While it does establish a minimum baseline for a sexual harassment policy as given above, other guidelines are only suggestions and are not required for the school to
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The guidelines for a Title IX suit can be filed basically immunize the school from liability in all cases of sexual harassment except the most extreme cases. “The individual must be able to show that her school (1) received federal funds, (2) had actual (as opposed to constructive) knowledge of the harassment, (3) responded to such known acts of harassment with indifference, and (4) deprived her of equal access to educational opportunities through its “clearly unreasonable” response to “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” harassment” (Walker 2010). The largest issues of these standards is proof of actual knowledge of the harassment. This give the school an incentive towards ignorance and the ability to avoid knowledge of what is going on and face no disciplinary action (Walker 2010; Silbaugh 2015). In addition, Title IX settlements, while give some sort of compensation to a survivor, allows schools with grossly negligent policies to disclaim any liability or fault for the underlying event (Walker