Introduction

Welcome to The Big Comment Catalog Project! This is a "crowd-researched" project to catalog each of the comments filed in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in November 2018 regarding Title IX and sexual harassment ("Title IX NPRM").

Over 124,000 comments were filed in response to the Title IX NPRM. Members of the public filed this historically large number of comments despite Secretary DeVos's decision to allow commenting for only 60 days, scheduled at a time of year when many students were engrossed in studying for and taking exams and then most schools were closed for their regularly-scheduled winter breaks. In addition to this comment-filing discouragement-by-design, the public faced additional obstacles to filing comments when the federal government shutdown took up 35 of the 60 days in the comment period, and prevented quick troubleshooting of several malfunctions of the commenting website.

Especially in light of these impediments to commenting, the contributions of those who did comment should be recognized--by ensuring that their comments can be read and engaged with, not only by Betsy DeVos' Department of Education ("ED"), but also by other members of the public who are interested. Unfortunately, however, although the comment process as defined by the Administrative Procedures Act requires ED to both read and seriously consider all comments, the law does not require ED to make available to the public whatever catalog of the comments ED may create in its internal comment-review process.

The Big Comment Catalog Project is designed to fill this gap by creating a database about the comments that will make it easier for all members of the public to read, report on, and otherwise use the comments filed in the Title IX NPRM. As a crowd-research project, volunteers are needed to read and collect data from the comments. We hope you will volunteer!

How Can I Help?

If you would like to participate in this project, please click the "I want to adopt 20 comments" button (below) to sign up for a batch of comments, then follow the instructions (below and on the form) to catalog each comment in your batch. No specialized knowledge or skills are required. We suggest signing up for 20 comments as a start and signing up for more once you know how long the first 20 took you to catalog. PLEASE NOTE (Trigger Warning): Comments may include information that is triggering to individuals who have been involved in instances of sexual harassment, gender-based violence or other traumatizing conduct. Please make your decision to volunteer to read and catalog comments with this warning in mind.

The crowd-researched aspects of this project are being coordinated by some of the members of the research team that read and analyzed the 16,000+ comments discussed in the Widely Welcomed and Supported by the Public report. If you do not have time or have other reasons why you cannot catalog comments but may like to contribute in other ways to this effort, please contact the research team at titleixcatalogproject@gmail.com.

We are happy to report that the catalog is approximately 85% complete. Our volunteers have been cataloging an average of roughly 50 comments each.

We are so grateful to everyone who has already volunteered, and we hope you will be inspired to join them. Feel free to recruit your friends and colleagues to support this effort as well!

The Buttons: Adopt a batch, catalog each comment, tell us when you're done

How to Catalog a Comment

So, you submitted the form to adopt a batch of comments, and we've emailed your list to you. Here's how you catalog your comments--it's easy:

All you need is the internet, a computer, and a gmail email address (here's where to create a gmail account for free). In your email from us, open your list of 20 comments, and open the "Catalog a Comment" form.

• Copy the first comment's URL from your list of comments.

• Paste it into two places:

  • A new tab on your browser; and

  • The form's "Comment ID" field.

  • Note that regulations.gov is transitioning to a new format and is currently testing that format by sending some users to a site that begins with "beta." If you get sent to the "beta" site, there are two options:

    • Close out of the window and return some time later to see if you can reach the site in the URL we sent for the comment-- if you don't get taken to the "beta" site, catalog the comment as usual.

    • In the main search field (where you will find yourself if on the "beta" site), copy the part of the URL we sent you starting with "ED-" into the search box, then click "Search," then "Comments." That should bring up the comment and you can catalog as usual.

• Referring to the comment, answer the remaining fields of General Information.

  • If the comment has attachment(s), open and refer to them, too.

• Click "Next"

  • If the comment was about Title IX, continue answering the fields of Detailed Information. Then answer the fields on the Topics screen. (See the FAQs section below for the questions on these screens.) Then, click "Submit."

  • If the comment was not about Title IX, there's nothing else to log about it. Click "Submit."

• Click "Submit another response" and log your next comment. (Hint: If you opened any attachments, close the first attachment(s) before you open the next comment's attachments.)

• When you've cataloged all the comments in your batch, come back here and click the "I'm done with my comments!" button so we can thank you.

  • If you want another batch, check the box "Send me another batch, please" or come back to this page and click the "Adopt 20 Comment" button and we'll send you another batch.

The Research Team

• Nancy Chi Cantalupo, Associate Professor of Law, California Western School of Law (SSRN)

• Kenneth R. Bundy, Lecturer in Mathematics and Statistics, University of Maine at Augusta (webscraping/data collection)

• Julianna Burchett, JD candidate, Barry University Dwayne O. Andreas School of Law

• Brooke Mascagni, PhD, Victim/Survivor Advocate and Scholar (website, LinkedIn)

• Steptoe & Johnson LLP