Two Letters
The first letter says the Title IX complaint against you has been dismissed. For about an hour, you think it is over.
Then you read the next paragraph, or the second letter that came the same afternoon. The same conduct will now be reviewed under a different policy. It may be called a code of student conduct, a sexual misconduct policy, a nondiscrimination and antiharassment policy, or a section of the staff handbook. An investigator has been assigned. You will be contacted to schedule an interview.
Nothing about the allegation has changed. The rulebook has.
This chapter is about that second rulebook. The 2020 Title IX regulations give you a specific set of protections, but only when the conduct alleged fits inside their definitions and their reach. When it does not, the school must take the matter out of the Title IX grievance process. The regulation then says, in so many words, that the school may still act under another provision of its code of conduct.[1] Check whether your institution has invoked another policy.
The protections you read about in Chapter 7 do not automatically follow the case into that other process. Some may. Some may be replaced by weaker versions. Some may simply be absent. Depending on the policy, there may be no live hearing, no cross-examination, no separate decision-maker, and no written evidence file you get to see before the report is final. At some schools the whole case will be decided by one person.
That is not necessarily a sign that anyone is out to get you. It is how these systems are built. But you need to know which system you are in, because almost every decision you make from here depends on it.
The Four Gates
Under the 2020 Title IX regulations, as recodified in the Code of Federal Regulations effective September 29, 2026, a complaint gets the full Title IX grievance process only if it passes through four gates.[2] If it fails any one of them, it is out.
Gate one: the conduct must be "sexual harassment" as the regulation defines it. The definition is narrower than the everyday meaning of the words. It covers three things, and only three:[3]
- An employee of the school conditioning an aid, benefit, or service on someone's participation in unwelcome sexual conduct. This is the classic quid pro quo.
- Unwelcome conduct that a reasonable person would find so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies someone equal access to the school's education program or activity. All three adjectives must be satisfied, not one or two.
- Sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, or stalking, each as defined in specific federal statutes the regulation cross-references.
A single crude remark, an unwanted comment in a meeting, a pattern of conduct that is offensive but not severe, or unwelcome conduct that fits none of the three categories may fall outside this definition. That does not mean the school cannot act on it. It means this formal sexual-harassment grievance framework does not automatically govern it. Other Title IX nondiscrimination obligations or campus rules may still need examination.
Gate two: it must have happened in the school's "education program or activity." The regulation defines that phrase to include locations, events, or circumstances over which the school exercised substantial control over both the respondent and the context, and any building owned or controlled by an officially recognized student organization at a college or university.[4] Conduct on campus, in a school building, or at a school event usually qualifies. Conduct in a private off-campus apartment, at a party with no connection to the school, or between two people who happen to work at the same university but met somewhere else may not. Whether the school had "substantial control" is a fact question, and schools answer it differently.
Gate three: it must have happened against a person in the United States.[5] Conduct during a study-abroad program, an overseas conference, or international fieldwork falls outside the Title IX grievance process even when the school ran the trip.
Gate four: there must be a formal complaint. A formal complaint is a document filed by the complainant, or signed by the Title IX coordinator, asking the school to investigate. When a complainant files it, she must be participating in or attempting to participate in the school's education program or activity at the time.[6] A former student or a former employee who has left and is not trying to return may not be able to file one. The Coordinator can still sign one.
These gates are not loopholes. They reflect choices the Department of Education made in 2020 about what federal law should require, and those choices were controversial on every side. For you, they matter for a simpler reason: whether your case passes all four decides which rulebook applies.
Dismissal, and the Sentence That Follows It
The regulation sorts dismissals into two kinds.
Mandatory dismissal. If the conduct alleged would not be sexual harassment as defined even if it were proved, did not occur in the school's education program or activity, or did not occur against a person in the United States, the school must dismiss the formal complaint as to that conduct. This can happen at the start or partway through, when the facts come into focus.[7]
Discretionary dismissal. The school may dismiss the complaint, or any allegation in it, if the complainant withdraws it in writing, if you are no longer enrolled or employed there, or if specific circumstances prevent the school from gathering enough evidence to reach a determination.[8]
Either way, the school must send written notice of the dismissal, with its reasons, to both parties at the same time.[9] And either party may appeal a dismissal, on the same three grounds available after a final determination: a procedural irregularity that affected the outcome, new evidence that was not reasonably available and could affect the outcome, or a conflict of interest or bias on the part of the coordinator, investigator, or decision-maker that affected the outcome.[10] The complainant can appeal a dismissal too. If she wins, the case comes back into the Title IX process.
Now the sentence that matters most in this chapter. The mandatory-dismissal provision ends by saying that such a dismissal "does not preclude action under another provision of the recipient's code of conduct."[11] Read it slowly. A Title IX dismissal is a statement about which federal procedures apply. It is not a finding that nothing happened, and it is not a finding in your favor. The dismissal provision does not itself prevent action under another code provision. Whether a particular further proceeding is authorized and fair depends on other applicable law and policy too.
A broader sexual misconduct or harassment policy may reach conduct beyond the formal framework, such as off-campus conduct, conduct abroad, harassment that is severe or pervasive rather than both. When a complaint is dismissed from Title IX, it is often routed straight into that policy, sometimes in the same letter.
There is one limit worth knowing. The restored retaliation provision says that charging someone with a code-of-conduct violation that arises out of the same facts as a sexual harassment report, for the purpose of interfering with a right under Title IX, is retaliation.[12] That provision protects complainants and respondents alike. But it turns on purpose. Routing a dismissed complaint to another policy because the policy covers the conduct is not, by itself, retaliation. Routing it there to strip a party of protections might be argued to be. That is a question for your lawyer, not a defense to raise on your own.
Students. If you withdraw from school while a case is pending, the school may dismiss the Title IX complaint under the discretionary ground. That may not end anything. Many schools note the pending matter on the record or resume it if you reenroll, and some continue under the conduct code. Chapter 13 covers this.