The Higher Ed Workplace Blog

On April 6, the U.S. Department of Education released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on student eligibility for athletic teams under Title IX. The proposed rulemaking focuses on transgender students’ eligibility to participate on athletic teams as legislation and policies at the federal, state and local levels have been introduced to ban transgender student participation in athletic programs.

New research from CUPA-HR has found that although employees across the higher education workforce saw the most substantial pay raises in 2022-23 than in the past several years, they are still being paid less than they were in 2019-20 in inflation-adjusted dollars.

HR sometimes falsely assumes that new leaders with higher ed experience know how to get the job done. Consequently, expectations may not be clearly articulated, which can create rough patches for the leader to navigate on their own. In the recent CUPA-HR webinar Building Leader Confidence in Transition: We Can’t Do It Alone, Sara Reed from Western Governors University explained that to help create a smooth transition for new leaders and ensure success from day one, HR can consider implementing these strategies in the pre-hire and onboarding phases.

On March 22, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a memo to all field offices with guidance on the Board’s recent decision in McLaren Macomb, in which the Board decided that employers cannot offer employees severance agreements that require employees to waive rights under the National Labor Relations Act, such as confidentiality and non-disparagement requirements. According to the NLRB’s press release, the memo is to be used as guidance to assist field offices responding to inquiries from workers, employers, labor unions and the public about implications stemming from McLaren Macomb.

On February 21, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its decision in McLaren Macomb deciding that employers cannot offer employees severance agreements that require employees to waive rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), such as confidentiality and non-disparagement requirements.

CUPA-HR General Counsel Ira Shepard’s overview this month includes a case concerning religious exemption to bias claims under Title VII, a law enacting pay-parity rights for temporary workers in New Jersey, litigation involving offensive music in the workplace, a case concerning unprofessional social media posts by a tenured public school teacher, and the OFCCP’s rescinding of Trump administration regulations allowing government contractors to ignore anti-discrimination obligations based on their faith.

On March 16, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) will present a webinar titled “The PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act: What Advocates and Employers Need to Know.” The free webinar is intended to provide resources and tools to assist employees who wish to continue breastfeeding after returning to work and to help employers understand their responsibilities under the law.

When it comes to representation and pay equity for women and people of color in the higher education workforce, colleges and universities have frequently struggled to make meaningful progress. Through several new interactive graphics representing years of research, CUPA-HR shines a light on the progress that has been made and the disparities that persist. These graphics represent data from CUPA-HR’s four signature higher ed workforce surveys — Administrators, Faculty, Professionals, and Staff — through 2022.

On February 17, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued three resource documents on Title IX compliance for schools’ athletic programs. The first resource document covers support for equal opportunity in school athletic programs generally, while the other two cover Title IX and athletic opportunities at K-12 schools and colleges and universities separately.

On February 28, President Biden announced he would nominate Julie Su to lead the Department of Labor (DOL). Su is currently the Deputy Secretary of Labor under Marty Walsh, who announced he would leave the agency mid-March to head the NHL Players Association.