Responsible Employees Question the Title IX System: When Civil Rights Programs Adopt Legal Logics

• In Event: 3155 - Inequality, Policy and Affirmative Action

Abstract

Through the application of legal theory and cultural sociology, I aim to solve a paradox: why would a population who supports the civil rights of women and survivors of sexual assault resist a civil rights office meant to serve that very population? I interviewed 30 feminist-leaning responsible employees who question their university’s Title IX Office and its policies and procedures. I find that Title IX Offices must balance two discrepant institutional logics: human rights logics and legal logics. Those who resist Title IX policies see themselves as gatekeepers of human rights for women and survivors, and feel that paternalistic, bureaucratic legal systems are failing to administer civil rights effectively. Feminist-leaning responsible employees are frontline workers who use their cultural understandings of human rights and the law as a toolkit to justify their resistances of Title IX.

Author

• Jessica Cabrera, University of California-Irvine