OCR’s Outreach, Prevention, Education and Non-discrimination (OPEN) Center focuses on strengthening civil rights compliance through voluntary, proactive, and targeted support to recipients and the public.

The OPEN Center provides technical assistance and support to schools, educators, families, and students to ensure better awareness of the requirements and protections of federal non-discrimination laws. The OPEN Center’s dedicated team of civil rights attorneys ensure that technical assistance is high-quality, accurate, thorough, and legally sound.

While OCR typically enforces federal civil rights laws through the traditional complaint-resolution process, OCR, through the provision of targeted support to recipient institutions and the public, also works more proactively through the OPEN Center—prior to the filing of complaints—to ensure that schools are aware of their obligations under federal civil rights law. By investing resources in technical assistance and public education, OCR provides not only much-needed assistance to recipients, but also better support to students, families, and stakeholders.

Requests for technical assistance with the laws enforced by OCR can be sent to OPEN@ed.gov. Questions regarding Title IX can also be sent to T9questions@ed.gov. For additional information on OCR’s policy guidance a link to OCR’s Policy Portal is here.

Please note: OCR’s presentations, included below, provide general information and may not represent a complete recitation of the applicable law and OCR policy in these areas. They do not address specific issues of compliance because determinations of compliance are fact-specific and made on a case-by-case basis. The language used in these slides is approved for the purposes of these presentations only and should not be used for other purposes.