Opinion: Independent Hillsdale College safe from intrusive Title IX regulations. For now.

All the leaders of Hillsdale College want is to be left alone by the government.

That’s why the small classical liberal arts college in Michigan refuses to accept any funding from state or federal governments, even in the form of financial aid.

Hillsdale, which is my alma mater, does this to preserve its independence and stay free of the strings that come with government money.

Yet, some would like to see the private college bow to federal and state oversight, despite its record of eschewing taxpayer support.

A lawsuit, filed last year, sought to do just this by claiming in part that Hillsdale failed to uphold its duties under Title IX – the federal law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex at all educational institutions that accept federal assistance.

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Two women, who said they were sexually assaulted by male students at Hillsdale, made the claims against the college in the civil complaint. One of the women still attends Hillsdale. The other transferred to another university.

This month, a federal district judge in Michigan threw out the case, dismissing it with prejudice, meaning the civil case can't be brought back to the same court. The plaintiffs, however, have elevated it to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

So the legal dispute is not over. And if the plaintiffs were to prevail, the legal implications for nonprofits around the country would be huge.

Lawsuit claimed Hillsdale should be subject to Title IX

The plaintiffs made the argument that because Hillsdale College enjoys nonprofit status as an educational institution, and is therefore tax exempt, that “benefit” is a form of federal assistance and consequently subjects the college to Title IX.

This lawsuit isn’t the first to make that argument. In recent years, lower courts in California and Maryland have found that Christian schools in those states should be obligated to follow Title IX because their tax-exempt status equated to federal assistance.

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Earlier this year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the lower court’s decision in the Maryland case.

U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering, who wrote the ruling in Hillsdale’s favor, leaned heavily on the appeals court’s reasoning that found a tax exemption does not constitute federal financial assistance.

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She said the appeals court argued that financial grants in the form of aid or other support are the “affirmative grant(ing) of funds” and are very different from a tax exemption.

“Moreover, the Fourth Circuit pointed out that unlike federal grants, where money ‘changes hands,’ a tax exemption ‘merely allows organizations to keep the money they otherwise would owe in income tax,’” Beckering wrote.

Let independent institutions stay independent

All this is a relief for Hillsdale College, and not because college administrators aren't committed to a safe and nurturing campus. They are. They believe they have a fair and thorough system in place to investigate allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct – without the government looking over their shoulder.

The lawsuit against Hillsdale comes at a time when the Biden administration has greatly expanded the scope of Title IX regulations, from how universities respond to sexual misconduct to the definition of sex.

The administration’s new Title IX expansion, which took effect in August, is on hold in more than half the states because of legal challenges to its overreach and concerns it would put due process, free speech, and girls and women’s privacy in jeopardy.

There’s good reason why Hillsdale doesn’t want anything to do with it.

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The threat from this lawsuit is bigger than just Title IX, however. If a nonprofit were suddenly subjected to government regulations, despite not accepting tax dollars, it would harm the independence of thousands of institutions around the country.

Robert Norton, Hillsdale’s general counsel and vice president, told me the college has striven to be free from state and federal regulations and is wary of any attempt to open the door to government intrusion.

“We would not be surprised if there's other regulators or regulatory bodies that try to find ways to make Hillsdale College do the things that they have in mind,” Norton said.

“We are just wanting to be left alone and allowed to do the things that we've always done, in a more peaceful way.”

That shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Hillsdale's Title IX victory is a win for all nonprofits