An ATIXA Tip of the Week by Brett A. Sokolow, Esq.
As a professional association, the Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA) has doubled in size since 2020. We have thousands of new members who have joined our community for an experience that is like drinking from a Title IX firehose. To support our members and the field, we publish weekly blogs like this, and our member listserv traffic is voluminous. Because we are constantly writing advice to the field, we tend to use shortcuts frequently to keep our fingers from getting too tired of typing. That has resulted in an ATIXA lexicon, of sorts, and some of our ATIXA-isms have even caught on outside of ATIXA’s members. We know that new members and readers may not all be familiar with our jargon. So, here’s a brief guide to shortening 20 of the common terms we tend to use over and over again in Title IX land…
- T9 = Title IX
- T7 = Title VII
- T6 = Title VI
- T9T = The Title IX Team
- TIXT = Title IX Today – ATIXA’s free bi-weekly Title IX news source
- TIXC or DTIXC = Title IX Coordinator or Deputy Title IX Coordinator
- SPOO = Severe, Pervasive, and Objectively Offensive (the T9 HE SH standard)
- SORPP = Severe or Persistent/Pervasive (the T7 HE standard)
- RP = Reasonable Person (aka, what everyone wants to be when they grow up!)
- IR = Informal Resolution
- AR = Alternative Resolution (Also ADR)
- VRA = Violence Risk Assessment
- QPQ = Quid Pro Quo
- P/ATP = Participating or Attempting to Participate (in Recipient’s educational program)
- DRE = Directly-Related Evidence
- HE = Hostile Environment
- SH = Sexual Harassment (written together as HESH, when we’re being really thrifty)
- ED = The Department of Education (always ED, never DOE. DOE is the Dept. of Energy!)
- OCR = The Office for Civil Rights
- ER = Emergency Removal
Bonus = WPPTVM. Yep, someone really coined this one to represent the criteria for triggering a TIXC to sign a complaint – Weapons, Pattern, Predation, Violence, Threat, Minors. I can type it, but don’t ask me how to pronounce it.
So, which one is your favorite? As the coiner of SPOO, I’m a little biased (just don’t look it up in Urban Dictionary).
To learn more about the benefits of becoming an ATIXA member, such as the listserv and training inclusions, view our membership levels.