Education Week - May 8, 2024 - 2

GOP-Led States Race
To Block New Title IX
LGBTQ+ Protections
Within days of the Biden administration announcing
new rules to extend Title IX protections to transgender
students, a number of Republican-led states
sued to overturn them.
In three separate lawsuits filed last week, Republican-led
states seek to block the LGBTQ+ changes to
Title IX, calling the new regulations " a naked attempt
to strong-arm " schools, " divorced from reality, " and
simply " onerous. "
The new rule, announced April 19 and published in
the Federal Register April 29, is the latest interpretation
of the 1972 federal statute that bars sex discrimination
in federally funded educational programs. It
includes major sections on sexual harassment and assault
and pregnancy discrimination, among others,
but it is the codification of protections for LGBTQ+
students that has spurred the most discussion.
The regulation says a school would violate the law
if it " denies a transgender student access to a sexseparate
facility or activity consistent with that student's
gender identity. " But the U.S. Department of
Education is still weighing a separate regulation that
addresses how schools and colleges may deal with
gender identity in athletics.
Even before the lawsuits were filed, though, education
officials in at least five states had advised schools
to ignore the new regulation.
One suit argues that the Education Department
violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the
spending clause in Article I of the U.S. Constitution,
under which Congress attaches conditions to the receipt
of federal funds. It asks a federal court to vacate
the new regulation and delay its Aug. 1 effective date.
One suit was filed by Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Montana. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South
Carolina filed a second. And Texas went solo with a
third.
The Education Department said it could not comment
on pending litigation, but " the department
crafted the final Title IX regulations following a rigorous
process to give complete effect to the Title IX
statutory guarantee that no person experiences sex
discrimination in federally funded education.
" We look forward to working with school communities
all across the country to ensure the Title IX guarantee
of nondiscrimination in school is every student's
experience, " the statement added.
Who's Doing
The Talking?
Baltimore County
Police Chief Robert
McCullough addresses
the news media last
month about charges
filed against a
Maryland athletic
director for allegedly
using AI to deepfake a
high school principal.
Maryland Athletic Director Accused of Using
Artificial Intelligence to Frame His Principal
Put this in your " this could happen to you " file.
Authorities say a high school athletic director in Maryland
used artificial intelligence to impersonate a principal on an
audio recording that included racist and antisemitic comments,
leading to dire consequences for the principal.
The case appears to be among the first of its kind in the
country, authorities said. They called for new laws to guard
against the technology.
Dazhon Darien faked the voice of Pikesville High School's
principal in response to conversations the men had about
Darien's poor work performance, Baltimore County police
said.
Darien forged an audio clip in which it sounded as if the
principal was frustrated with Black students and their testtaking
abilities, according to charging documents. They also
said the recording purported to capture the principal disparaging
Jewish individuals and two teachers.
The audio clip quickly spread on social media and had " profound
repercussions, " court documents say, with the principal
being placed on leave. The recording put the principal and his
family at " significant risk, " requiring police officers to provide
security at his house, according to authorities.
The recording also triggered a wave of hate-filled messages
on social media and an inundation of phone calls to the school
police said. Activities were disrupted for a time, and some
staff felt unsafe.
" Teachers have expressed fears that recording devices could
have been planted in various places in the school, " the charging
documents say.
Darien, 31, faces charges that include theft, disrupting
school activities, stalking, and retaliating against a witness.
Scott Shellenberger, the Baltimore County state's attorney,
said the case appears to be one of the first of its kind nationwide
involving AI. He said Maryland's legislature may need
to update laws to catch up with the nefarious possibilities of
the new technology.
The Baltimore County school system has recommended
Darien's termination, Superintendent Myriam Rogers said.
More School Workers Will Qualify for Overtime
Under Federal Rule, But Teachers Don't Count
Tough luck, teachers. A new federal rule that requires school
districts to offer overtime pay to more workers excludes teachers.
The U.S. Department of Labor did not act on a request from the
National Education Association to end exemptions for teachers,
who are included in the categories of employees who do not qualify
for mandatory overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards
Act. The Labor Department said the request was outside the scope
of the current review.
Such a change " would have been groundbreaking in terms of
what it would mean to district budgets because we all know teachers
work more than 40 hours, " said Noelle Ellerson Ng, the associate
executive director of advocacy and governance at AASA, the
School Superintendents Association.
The new rule raises the minimum salary threshold for nonteaching
worker exemptions. Since 2019, eligible employees who
earn less than $35,308 a year have qualified for overtime pay if
they work more than 40 hours a week. Effective July 1, the new
rule will increase that to $43,888 and to $58,656 in January. Salary
thresholds will update every three years starting in July 2027.
AASA has been preparing district leaders for the shift for
months, Ng said. In some cases, districts will have to choose between
offering newly qualifying employees overtime or hiring
additional workers to help lower their workloads, she said.
The NEA argued for the end of the teacher exemption in a November
letter to federal regulators.
" It no longer makes sense to treat teachers, 44 percent of whom
are paid below the proposed salary threshold, the same as highearning
doctors and lawyers, " wrote Alice O'Brien, the general
counsel for the NEA. " Instead, teachers, a heavily female profession
that suffers from a large and growing wage gap compared
with other similarly educated professionals, should be provided
the same protections as other white-collar professionals whose
exempt status depends not just on job duties, but also on salary. "
Doctors and lawyers are also among the employees exempt
from mandatory overtime but tend to be paid much more than
educators. Last year, the median salary for doctors was $229,300,
and the median salary for lawyers was $135,740, the NEA's letter
noted. The median pay for teachers was $66,397.
BRIEFLY STATED CONTRIBUTORS: Associated Press, Evie Blad, Ileana Najarro, Mark Walsh, and Madeline Will. Edited by Karen Diegmueller.
2 | EDUCATION WEEK | May 8, 2024 | www.edweek.org
Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun via AP

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Education Week - May 8, 2024

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