complaints. Finally, grantees must provide notification to students and 

 employees that sex discrimination is prohibited in their programs or 

 activities. 



All federcd agencies have enforcement responsibUities under Title IX. All 

 federal agencies, including Education, Energy, NASA, and NSF, are 

 responsible for handling Title IX enforcement of their own grantees and 

 may refer complaints against educational institutions to Education's OCR 

 and employment-related sex discrimination complaints to EEOC. 

 Education's OCR plays a key role in ensuring complicince with Title EK 

 because it has primary responsibility to investigate most types of 

 complaints at educational institutions, including complaints referred from 

 other federal agencies. 



Although EEOC does not have any authority under Title IX, it does have 

 authority under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to investigate sex- 

 based complaints of employment discrimination, including sex 

 discrimination against faculty and scientists. Even though Title IX 

 regulations specifically include employment as a protected activity, 

 agencies generally send all employment-related discrimination complaints 

 to EEOC for investigation. EEOC officials told us that they process these 

 complaints as Title VII complaints. As such, EEOC will review referrals 

 from other federal agencies made under Title IX to see if they warrant 

 investigation under Title VII. 



The Department of Justice (Justice) was given authority under Executive 

 Order 12250 for the "consistent and effective implementation" of several 

 civil rights laws, including Title IX. Specifically, Justice is responsible for 

 the coordination of agencies' enforcement of Title IX, including 

 (1) reviewing and approving of agencies' regulations, (2) developing 

 standards and procedures for conducting investigations and compUance 

 reviews, (3) arranging for referral of cases between agencies, and 

 (4) representing federal agencies in court proceedings. Justice 

 consequently published a Final Common Rule in August 2000, which 

 promulgated Title IX regulations adopted by 21 agencies, patterned after 

 the Department of Education's Title IX regulations. Figure 1 broadly 

 outlines the various complaint processes under Title IX. 



Page 6 GAO-04-639 Gender Issues 



