Clemson University is no longer prying into its students’ sex lives
Clemson announced the suspension of the controversial training late Wednesday night.
The mandatory online Title IX training asked students about their drinking habits and sex lives and required identifying information to login.
In a campus-wide email late Wednesday night, Clemson University announced the suspension of its mandatory Title IX training program.
As originally reported by Campus Reform, Clemson required its students to disclose personal information about drinking habits and their sex lives as part of an online Title IX training course, which required students’ IDs, names, addresses, and housing details in order to login. All students, faculty, and staff were required to complete the course by Nov. 1 or face disciplinary action.
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“Required Title IX online training has been suspended pending elimination of certain questions that were associated with a training module provided by a third-party vendor,” the email, sent at 11:42 p.m., said. “Clemson University will eliminate these questions. We apologize for any concern and inconvenience this has caused.”
The training course was purchased by Clemson through CampusClarity, "[a] Title IX and Campus SaVE Act education program that combines sexual assault and substance abuse prevention in a comprehensive online training program."
The suspension of the training course came as a relief to some students who were apprehensive about disclosing such personal information to the university and a third-party.
“I think it's absolutely the right move on their part,” Roger Clinkscales, a Clemson senior, told Campus Reform. “Clearly a mistake was made and the training needs a closer look before dissemination to the university. Kudos to them for pulling the plug before it became a bigger issue.”
However, Austin Pendergist, a junior political science and Spanish major, remained apprehensive Wednesday.
“It's a great first step forward, but not a complete victory since they're only planning on eliminating certain questions from the invasive program,” Pendergist told Campus Reform. “We need to eliminate the entire ‘mandatory’ program altogether since there is nothing in the Campus SaVE Act that requires a mandatory program to be completed by all students and faculty, but rather it only requires that programs be available, not mandated, for faculty and new students.”
The news of the training course’s suspension really only affected students; the mandatory training for faculty was not to be available until sometime next week.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @K_Schallhorn
