(Excerpts from The Chronicle of Higher Education)

• The Education Department on Tuesday issued new guidance for how colleges should investigate sexual misconduct under Title IX, the federal gender-equity law.
• The department released a question-and-answer document interpreting the Trump administration’s Title IX regulations, which took effect a year ago. The guidance is a stopgap measure, indicating how federal officials will enforce Title IX while the department goes through the lengthy process of reviewing and revising the regulations.Here are a few highlights from the department’s new Title IX guidance:
• Colleges can still investigate incidents that don’t fall under the regulations’ narrow definition of sexual harassment.
• Colleges should investigate some incidents that happen off campus.
• Colleges can designate professors and other campus employees with the “authority” to respond to sexual misconduct, if they deem it appropriate.
• Colleges can remove students or employees accused of sexual misconduct from campus while the investigation is active.
• Colleges can set time frames for finishing Title IX investigations, even though they’re not forced to do so by the rules.
• If students or employees don’t participate in the live hearing, campus officials can’t rely on any of their previous statements to make a decision, even if they confessed.