By Brett A. Sokolow, Esq., Chair, TNG Consulting LLC and President, ATIXA
As an organization privileged to provide the lion’s share of Title IX training to college and school administrators in the U.S., ATIXA is always thinking about the best ways to frame and deliver its training content. At present, ATIXA offers training in a variety of formats, summarized below:
- Live, in-person training for administrators from many schools
- Live, in-person custom training for specific school clients
- Online (virtual) live training for administrators from many schools
- Online (virtual) live custom training for specific school clients
- Asynchronous, on-demand online courses, workshops, and video modules
- Short, written content including blogs and tips of the week
- Longer-format written content (manuals, guides, whitepapers, etc.)
ATIXA’s preference is for live, in-person and virtual trainings, taught by experts, where the registrants can interact and ask questions in real-time. When ATIXA offers written training content, it is often to supplement in-person certification training, to reinforce that training content, or to focus on nuanced issues that require a deeper, written explication. When the 2020 Title IX regulations were released, ATIXA knew that a manual for Hearing Decision-makers would be a critical training tool, but the challenge was how to present the content in manageable chunks.
ATIXA decided on a three-part approach. The first publication to be completed was The ATIXA Title IX Hearing Decision-Maker Training Manual, released in August 2021. This 150-page manual is a comprehensive, how-to procedural guide for all that hearing decision-makers need to know to run proficient, compliant, Title IX hearings.
As the second part of its approach, ATIXA also created a shorter version for Hearing Chairs that is titled: The ATIXA Guide to Chairing a Title IX Hearing, Controlling Evidence, and Cross-Examination. This Chairs Guide is a mere lightweight at 75 pages and excludes some of the content from the 150-page Title IX Hearing Decision-Maker Training Manual that will be duplicative for Chairs who are already experienced Hearing Decision-makers. Chairs who are new to the role and to hearing decision-making should reference the entire ATIXA Title IX Hearing Decision-Maker Training Manual.
Both publications were authored by TNG’s team of experts, including Timothy Dunn, Leslee Morris, Kim Pacelli, Joe Vincent, Mandy Hambleton, and Brett Sokolow. The publications include exercises, training tools, appendices, templates, and resources.
The third publication in the three-part strategy is a substantive, policy-based decision-making publication for Hearing Decision-makers, focused on the subject matter of sex discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, gender identity discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking. This publication is an update of a previous guide to the same content that was first released in 2017 as The ATIXA Playbook. The Playbook and the ATIXA Title IX Hearing Decision-Maker Training Manual are designed as a set, one procedural and one substantive. The Playbook is in final revisions now to update it for the 2020 Title IX regulations and their new definitions of offenses.
If these seem like publications you need, they are available within ATIXA’s class-leading Title IX ToolKit (TIXKit) and as membership inclusions for ATIXA Super Members. If you are already a TIXKit subscriber or Super Member, they are available to you by accessing the TIXKit online at www.atixa.org.
If you’d like to purchase TIXKit access, click here. To obtain ATIXA Super Membership, click here.
The Playbook will be added to the TIXKit upon its release, with no additional order or purchase necessary. These publications will also be available to those who register for ATIXA’s corresponding certification courses, including:
- The ATIXA Title IX Chairs Certification Course (one-day)
- The ATIXA Title IX Hearing Officer and Decision-Maker Certification Course (two-days)
- The ATIXA Title IX Hearing Officer and Decision-Maker Interactive Mock Hearing (one-day)
ATIXA knows these essential trainings and new written supplements will help college and university administrators to deliver competent, professional, efficient, and fair hearings.