Have We Forgotten How to Be Human? Dignity & Accountability

“Dignity is not a loophole-dependent privilege. If our rules leave room to disregard someone’s humanity, we owe them better rules—and better care.” - Mary Coughlin

On rights, responsibility, and the practice of “humanning.”

I began with a question about Title IX. I have ended up with a question about us.

How have we built so many rules about fair treatment and still left so much room for people to be treated unfairly? And when we discover a gap in legal protection, why does the conversation so often turn to what an institution is required to do, rather than what the person needs and what we have the power to offer?

I know those are different questions. I am wondering why we have become so comfortable answering only the first.

Title IX is the federal law passed in 1972 that prohibits sex discrimination in education programs receiving federal funding. Its reach includes educational opportunities, sexual harassment and violence, pregnancy discrimination, and retaliation against people who report discrimination.

What caught my attention was learning how the law could remain in place while the rules schools must follow changed. Those rules help determine when a school must investigate a complaint and which procedures apply.

The Biden administration adopted broader rules in 2024. A federal court struck them down in January 2025. The Trump administration returned to enforcing the earlier 2020 rules and formally restored their wording in September 2026. Courts and the administration both played a role in that shift.

Among the changes were the removal of explicit protections concerning sexual orientation and gender identity, and a return to a stricter test for certain sexual harassment complaints. Other laws and school policies may still provide protection. Sexual assault remains separately covered and does not have to happen repeatedly to qualify.

But consider the person asking for help. They may now need to find another policy, understand another process, or explain their experience to someone else. They may receive support. They may also find themselves navigating a system they thought would be ready to respond.

“The law has not changed” offers little reassurance if the path to protection has become harder.

That discovery led me somewhere deeper. Sex discrimination is unjust, yet we needed specific laws to prohibit it in particular settings. The same is true of other forms of discrimination. We have built protections piece by piece, with different requirements and exceptions.

Those details matter. They make obligations enforceable. A broad instruction to “be fair” would leave far too much unanswered.

Still, I find myself asking whether we have become so absorbed in defining the boundaries of our obligations that we have lost sight of the responsibility behind them.

A person’s dignity does not begin where a statute applies. Nor does it disappear when a complaint falls outside a particular process.

I keep returning to stewardship.

The spacious language of our Constitution allows its principles to speak to circumstances its authors could never have imagined. Laws, too, sometimes leave room for interpretation. That room can allow our understanding of protection to grow. It can also allow people in power to argue for making protection narrower.

The Constitution and a statute such as Title IX are different kinds of law. But both require people to exercise judgment and to answer for how they use that judgment.

There are legal safeguards against arbitrary government action. Agencies must stay within their authority, and many rule changes require public notice, an opportunity to comment, and an explanation. Courts can reject unlawful agency decisions.

Yet legality cannot answer every ethical question.

A decision may be legally permitted and still be callous. An institution may satisfy a requirement while leaving someone frightened and unsupported. We need to be able to examine both the legal reasoning and the human experience.

If officials change rules affecting people’s protection, they should have to explain what authorizes the change, what problem it addresses, and what evidence supports it. They should identify who gains protection, who faces new barriers, whether a less harmful approach is available, and how the consequences will be reviewed.

I believe those questions deserve a clear, public rubric: standards against which decisions can be assessed, with meaningful ways to challenge failures.

But I also began wondering about the rubric beneath that rubric.

What are the core expectations of being human with one another?

I found myself calling it humanning. I made the word up, but I think I need it. Being human is something we are. Humanning might describe how we practice the responsibility that comes with it.

The Golden Rule offers a beginning: treat others as you would want to be treated. But even that asks for reflection. What comforts me may overwhelm you. What feels like a meaningful choice to me may be impossible for you. My preferences cannot stand in for your voice.

Respect requires curiosity. Care requires us to listen closely enough to discover what we have assumed.

So here is my proposed rubric for humanning.

Dignity. Every person has equal worth. That includes the person whose choices trouble us, whose beliefs we reject, or whose conduct requires firm boundaries. We can confront harm and impose consequences without humiliation or dehumanization. The question is whether we are addressing what someone has done while still recognizing who they are: a person.

Safety. We have a responsibility to notice foreseeable harm, take reports seriously, and act within our ability to prevent or address it. We cannot promise a life without risk or discomfort. We can refuse to make someone endure avoidable harm because responding would be inconvenient.

Voice and agency. People deserve understandable information and a meaningful say in decisions affecting their lives. Where consent is required, it must be sought. Where choices are limited, those limits should be explained. An invitation to speak means little if disagreement brings punishment or nothing anyone says can influence the outcome.

Equity. Fairness requires us to notice differences in need, barriers, and access. Giving everyone the same instructions does not help equally if some cannot read them, access them, afford the next step, or safely follow them. We must ask who carries a greater burden and what support would make participation possible.

Truth and transparency. People deserve accurate explanations in language they can understand. We should disclose uncertainty, acknowledge conflicts of interest, and explain consequential decisions. Confusion should never become a convenient shelter for power.

Responsible use of power. Authority carries obligations. A restriction should have a legitimate purpose, be no greater than necessary, and be open to review. The more power we hold over someone’s care, livelihood, education, housing, or freedom, the more carefully we must account for its use.

Accountability and repair. When harm occurs, we must acknowledge it, stop what is causing it, offer appropriate repair, and change the conditions that allowed it. Good intentions do not settle the matter. The person affected needs to know what will happen next.

These are ethical expectations I am proposing, rather than a universal legal test. They will not settle every disagreement. They can, however, give us a disciplined way to examine how we treat one another.

And they need teeth.

In an institution, someone must be responsible for responding. People need a safe way to raise concerns without retaliation, clear timelines, and access to independent review when the institution itself is implicated. There must be meaningful remedies, proportionate consequences, and follow-up to determine whether the harm stopped. Otherwise, dignity becomes something we put in a mission statement while leaving people to fend for themselves.

This rubric should never work like an average score. Excellent communication cannot compensate for degrading treatment. Inviting feedback cannot compensate for refusing to address a known danger. Some failures require us to stop, protect the people affected, and change course.

A trauma-informed approach helps us recognize why these expectations matter. Safety, trustworthiness, transparency, collaboration, and voice are foundational principles. They ask us to consider how systems can support people AND how systems can compound harm.

In healthcare, I have seen how easily the person can recede behind the procedure, the schedule, or the institutional priority. I suspect many of us have witnessed the same thing in schools, workplaces, and public life. We become skilled at explaining the process and less attentive to the experience it creates.

That deserves our examination, including when we are the ones holding power.

When have I mistaken agreement for consent? When have I offered a choice someone could not realistically use? When have I explained a limitation without exploring what I could still do? When have I accepted “that is the policy” as the end of my responsibility?

These questions ask something of me, too.

Compassion must include everyone involved. Someone reporting harm deserves support and a serious response. Someone accused deserves an impartial process and a fair opportunity to respond. Caring for one person does not require deciding another person’s guilt in advance.

Wise stewardship asks us to hold these responsibilities together and do the difficult work they require.

We can begin wherever we have influence. Ask whose voice is missing from a decision. Ask whether the available help is understandable and reachable. Ask what happens when a person falls outside the usual process. When someone says, “There is nothing we can do,” ask what prevents action and what remains possible.

And when government changes access to protection, demand the legal basis, the evidence, an honest account of the human cost, and a meaningful way to challenge the decision.

I began by asking how the rules around a law could change. I am left asking whether we are willing to make dignity an obligation we practice, especially when the rules leave us room to do less.

We need laws that protect people. We also need people and institutions willing to take responsibility for the gaps.

Perhaps that is the work of humanning: to recognize another person’s worth, examine what our power does in their life, and answer for whether our care reaches them.

With fierce care, and a willingness to be held accountable,
Mary