Senators Want More Money for Campus Sex Police

Several Democratic senators are requesting additional funds for the Education Department to continue policing the sex lives of college students.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Tim Kaine, Claire McCaskill and Mark Warner have written a letter calling for increased funding for the Department's Office for Civil Rights, which has been investigating schools for alleged violations of the anti-sex discrimination law known as Title IX. The senators are requesting a budget of $137.7 million for OCR. Last year, the office's budget was $100 million, which means the senators are asking for a nearly 30 percent increase in funding for this one department.

Here's how we got to this point, put as simply as possible: In 2011, OCR sent out a "Dear Colleague" letter that vastly expanded the definition of Title IX and what schools needed to do in order to comply with the statute. Because of the broadening of the statute, schools have been accused of violating students' rights under Title IX and have come under investigation by OCR. Now OCR is requesting more money to investigate these schools because it has become overwhelmed.

The "Dear Colleague" letter sent by OCR in 2011 did not go through the required notice-and-comment period that past letters had gone through. This prompted Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., to demand that OCR justify its overreach. OCR failed to do so to Lankford's liking.

Why does this matter? Because it means OCR expanded its own responsibilities — it wasn't Congress or anyone else who gave it these responsibilities.

Put another way: OCR expanded its own responsibilities and now wants more money to carry out those responsibilities.

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