Some students who are pregnant or who have recently given birth may discover their colleges and universities will now be providing accommodations for them, including larger desks, sterile lactation spaces and more.
The new accommodations are a result of changes in federal law that bans sex-based discrimination in schools.
But Lane Community College students may also find an unwelcome surprise: LCC is telling its employees they may be required to alert college officials if a student is pregnant or has a pregnancy-related condition, without the student’s permission to share this information.
According to LCC emails obtained by Eugene Weekly, those conditions include postpartum depression, lactation and miscarriage.
LCC Title IX Coordinator Daniel Brown says the official Title IX guidelines require employees to provide his contact information to any student who has disclosed to them that they are pregnant or have a defined pregnancy-related condition.
Josia Klein, a counsel for the National Women’s Law Center’s Education and Workplace Justice Team, says the employee cannot opt out of giving the coordinator’s contact to the student.
“They are required,” she says. “That’s that.”
However, LCC employees have been told they can opt out.
If the employee chooses not to discuss the pregnancy or related condition with the student, Brown says the employee must inform LCC’s Sexual Respect Office of the student.
Additionally, Brown says LCC employees are not required to inform the student that they have passed their personal information to the Title IX office. Instead, students are likely to find out that their information was shared when Brown initiates contact.
“It would skip the middleman,” he says. “I would write them a support letter that said, ‘Hey, these are the supports that we have.’”
Brown says he understands that students may be uncomfortable with their personal information being shared without their knowledge, but there’s no way to hide a pregnancy from the public unless you go “totally off grid,” he says.
“I don’t mean to minimize people’s concerns of the possibility of a paper trail being created,” Brown says, “but if you exist in this world, a paper trail is being created.”
According to Klein, student privacy is the most important thing included in the updated Title IX pregnancy clause.
“So privacy is paramount for students, especially when pregnancy and related conditions are involved,” she says. “Under the new rules, a school generally cannot disclose an individual’s personally identifiable information obtained through the course of compliance with Title IX.”
Klein says she hasn’t heard of other universities or colleges allowing employees to directly pass student information to the Title IX coordinator. University of Oregon officials say they will not be requiring employees to inform the school about a student’s pregnancy-related condition without the student’s permission.
Lisa Anderson is the founder and executive director of Atlanta Women for Equality, a legal aid nonprofit that focuses on women’s rights to equitable treatment and equal opportunities in education. Anderson has been working with Title IX since 2012, and although she isn’t specialized in the updated pregnancy clause, she is well-versed in the intricacies of Title IX.
According to Anderson, Title IX has protected pregnant and parenting students since its 1972 inception, as discrimination on the basis of a student’s pregnancy is considered sex-based discrimination. The 2024 update laid out these protections in more official language, banning pregnancy-based discrimination, adding mandatory accommodations for pregnant and parenting students, and detailing how employees should respond when learning about a student’s pregnancy.
Higher education employees are required to give the Title IX coordinator’s contact information to students who are pregnant, have recently given birth or have experienced another pregnancy-related condition, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Title IX fact sheet.
“Title IX is a floor, not a ceiling,” Klein says, calling the exchange of the coordinator’s contact information a “low burden” for employees.
LCC, however, saw fit to “lower the floor,” Brown says.
In an email on August 6, LCC’s Brown told the college’s employees that they do not need to provide his contact information. However, if they don’t, they must disclose the student’s identity to LCC’s Title IX officer.
“This step is not necessary if you provide the student the contact information,” Brown wrote, “but if you are unable to [give the student my contact information], then you must [give the student’s info to the Title IX office].”
In the email, Brown added, “If you have ANY affirmative knowledge that the student is pregnant or has a pregnancy related condition, you MUST provide the Title IX contact information to the student or a report to the Title IX office (i.e. they mention in casual conversation that their lactation bra is uncomfortable or that they need to miss class because they’re going to their first trimester ultrasound appointment).”
Brown wrote that this rule applies to all employees, not just those who have additional reporting requirements under federal law. Anderson says that being contacted by a stranger after having spoken with someone trusted could be discomforting for a student.
“It can be intimidating, especially in the [formal] terms of emails,” Anderson says. “If they just say, ‘We have heard from an unspecified person that you may or may not be with child,’ that would be humiliating to me.”
Anna Sammons, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney who teaches criminal law and criminal procedure classes at LCC, was once herself a pregnant and parenting student. Sammons expressed concern about the new Title IX guidance to LCC administration.
“There’s nothing in the messaging by the school to suggest that the pregnant student’s permission is needed,” she says. “What they are normalizing is this idea of people making reports to a government agency about someone’s pregnancy status.”
While Brown can not point to specific language in the Title IX guidelines permitting LCC’s workaround, he says that administration is allowing employees to contact the Title IX office directly if they are “unwilling or unable” to have the conversation with the student.
Klein says that LCC’s procedure isn’t necessarily violating Title IX, as the regulation doesn’t directly state not to take this alternative route, but the college is not honoring the path outlined by the law.
“The text is very clear that the requirements of Title IX are that the employees provide the students with the Title IX coordinator’s contact information,” Klein says. “That, coupled with the rules emphasis that students’ privacy rights be protected and that personally identifiable information not be inappropriately disclosed, I think is key.”
Brown could not give an example when asked why an employee may be unwilling or unable to provide the Title IX coordinator’s contact information.
“It may be that having the backup procedure is entirely meaningless because everyone just provides the Title IX coordinator’s information just fine,” he adds.
Sammons says she “can’t imagine this ever occurring to anyone as an option unless they were told.”
The Lane Community College Education Association, the faculty union, declined to comment.
The University of Oregon won’t be telling employees that directly passing along a student’s pregnancy-related information to the Title IX office is an option, says Nicole Commissiong, UO’s chief civil rights officer and Title IX coordinator.
“That would be really off-putting for students,” Commissiong says. “You tell someone you’re pregnant, and the next thing you know, some person that you’ve never met is writing to you about your pregnancy.”
Commissiong says UO employees will be required to inform a student how to contact the Title IX office and are encouraged to help the student contact the office upon request.
“It’s a very low entry bar,” Commissiong says of the updated Title IX requirement, “and an easy thing to expect of employees.”
Anderson agrees. “You should simultaneously have the right to not be shamed for being pregnant,” she says, “but also to keep your business to yourself.”