Sigma Chi Advocacy Update

Post date: Nov 08, 2019 2:59:22 PM

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 the House Education committee passed the College Affordability Act (CAA), a massive higher education reauthorization bill.  

The CAA includes strong protections for students joining single-sex organizations, and represents the most important action taken in Congress on this issue since Title IX passed in the 1970s.  The CAA also includes the first federal effort to provide parents and students with information needed to steer clear of student organizations involved in hazing activities.  The freedom of association and anti-hazing provisions have been years in the making thanks to the tireless lobbying efforts of the Fraternal Government Relations Coalition (FGRC), which includes the NIC, the NPC, the Fraternity and Sorority PAC, and the Fraternity and Sorority Action Fund.  The committee action taken Thursday in the House is just the first step in the legislative process.  We now expect the House will vote on the CAA before the end of the calendar year.  The Senate has been considering a significantly different higher education reform package but has not started to move that package through the chamber.  We do not expect a final higher education bill to clear Congress in 2019, but passage in the House this year, makes a 2020 final bill possible.

Overview

The FGRC achieved several major wins with its policy priorities related to freedom of association and anti-hazing. The House Education and Labor Committee released its Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization bill – the College Affordability Act (CAA) (H.R. 4674) – earlier in October.  The Committee spent three days this week working through the bill, considering amendments, and then passed the bill out of committee Thursday morning.  We expect the full House to consider the bill on the floor sometime in the next few weeks.

The bill as passed by the House Education and Labor Committee contains language related to all of the FGRC’s policy priorities. Below is a brief description of each of these wins in the bill.

Collegiate Freedom of Association Act

• The committee’s bill contains language similar to the Collegiate Freedom of Association Act (CFAA) (H.R. 3128), which Reps. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ/Sigma Chi) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) introduced in June of 2019 and which currently has 29 sponsors in the House.  The freedom of association provisions in the CAA would prohibit institutions of higher education from taking an adverse action against a student solely because the student is a member of a single-sex organization.  

• There is a lot of overlap between the Gallego/Stefanik CFAA supported by the FGRC and the language now included in the CAA that passed committee on Thursday.  The CAA language on freedom of association bill defines an adverse action as an instance where a school takes one of the following actions:

  • Expulsion, suspension, probation, censure, condemnation, formal reprimand, or any other disciplinary action, coercive action, or sanction (including an oral or written warning) taken by an institution of higher education or administrative unit of such institution

  • Denying participation in any education program or activity

  • Withholding or denying the opportunity to apply for financial assistance, a scholarship, a graduate fellowship, or on-campus employment

  • Denying or restricting access to on-campus housing

  • Denying certification, endorsement, or letter of recommendation that may be required by a student’s current or future employer, a government agency, a licensing board, an institution of higher education, a scholarship program, or a graduate fellowship

  • Denying participation in any sports team, club, or other student organization, including a denial of any leadership position in any sports team, club, or other student organization

  • Requiring a student to certify that they are not a member of a single-sex social organization or to disclose the student’s membership in a single-sex social organization

• In addition, as is customary in committee debates in the House, the minority party (Republicans) presented an alternative comprehensive higher education bill for consideration.  That alternative bill included the exact same freedom of association language that is in the CAA.  The Republican alternative bill was defeated on a party-line vote, but it demonstrated that there is broad bipartisan support in the House for protecting every college student’s freedom of association rights. 

• During the House Education and Labor Committee’s work Wednesday on the bill, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) spoke at length about protecting freedom of association rights for students.  See the video of Rep. Stefanik’s remarks here.

REACH Act

• The committee’s bill includes the exact text of the REACH Act (H.R. 662) that Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH/Delta Sigma Theta) introduced in January.  It would amend the Clery Act to require schools to include the number of hazing incidents that occurred on their campus in the last year as part of the institution’s Annual Security Report.  

• This would allow for better tracking of hazing incidents at particular schools to determine what programs might make a difference in reducing hazing.  It also would require institutions to provide students with an educational program on hazing, which would include information on hazing awareness, hazing prevention, and the institution’s policies on hazing.

END ALL Hazing Act

• The committee’s bill includes language similar to the END ALL Hazing Act (H.R. 3267), which Reps. Fudge and Glenn Thompson (R-PA) introduced in June.  

• This bill would require institutions to provide detailed information listing student organizations found to have violated the institution’s code of conduct related to hazing.  Schools will have to include this information as part of their Annual Security Report under the Clery Act as well as on a webpage accessible for parents and students to make informed decisions about what organizations are safe to join.

Next Steps

The House is expected to vote on the CAA before the end of the year.  Given the current political environment, the CAA is expected to pass the House largely along party lines.  The Senate has begun discussions about its own higher education package, but that chamber will likely not begin moving their own package until 2020.  The Republican-led Senate is likely to take a different approach on many big-picture issues in the higher education policy debate, and the Senate is very unlikely to simply take up the House-passed CAA.  Nevertheless, the fact all three FGRC priorities are in the House bill gives momentum to those issues being considered for inclusion in the Senate higher education bill.

The FGRC is now working to:

1. Build support for the three stand-alone bills it supports – the CFAA, the END ALL Hazing Act, and the REACH Act – by trying to get more Senators and Representatives to become co-sponsors of those bills;

2. Encourage the House to pass the CAA this fall since it includes all three FGRC stand-alone bills in one form or another;

3. Encourage the Senate committee with jurisdiction over higher education issues to include all three FGRC bills in the Senate higher education legislative package.  It is likely that sometime in February 2020, the NPC and NIC will be asking individual national sororities and fraternities to participate in a virtual day of advocacy aimed at building more co-sponsors for these three stand-alone bills and encouraging the Senate to include those bills in its higher education package.