REVOLVING DOOR UPDATE: U.S. Aides Find New Door To Jobs on Campuses Dealing With Sex Crimes.
To the list of defense contractors recruiting retiring Pentagon officials, corporate law firms hiring former SEC and Justice Department officials, and trade associations signing up former senators, add another new hot recruiting field for the private sector. Universities are snapping up employees with experience related to the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which is in charge of enforcing Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
That law is best known for boosting the presence of women’s sports on college campuses, spawning a sports-bra company of the same name. Lawyers with experience related to the federal Office of Civil Rights are in high demand at the moment, though, not because of any ability coaching undergraduate soccer players or designing athletic apparel. Rather, they are being sought after for their ability to coach college administrators through the legal mine field that is the latest guidance from the Obama administration on “Title IX and Sexual Violence.”
Later this month, Valerie Simons will start a $150,000-a-year job as Title IX coordinator at the University of Colorado. The Boulder Daily Camera reports that Ms. Simons “served as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Education Section, where she was the lead attorney in charge of enforcing Title IX and other civil rights laws around the U.S.” In her new position, she will report directly to the university’s chancellor.
In May of this year, Stanford announced that Catherine Criswell would join that university as its Title IX coordinator after a 19-year career at the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
Harvard last year hired as its Title IX coordinator Mia Karvonides, another Department of Education Office of Civil Rights lawyer; a Harvard memo at the time reported by the Boston Globe reported that her “duties at the Office of Civil Rights included investigating post-secondary and elementary/secondary institutions for compliance with Title IX. “
More such hires are on the way.
Write complicated, intrusive regulations — then get hired by their targets to help them comply, and to use your connections with the new crop of enforcers. Yet another argument for my revolving-door surtax.