May 07, 2015 11:21 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

In the effort to curb campus sexual assault, the U.S. Education Department has found itself overwhelmed with complaints against schools allegedly violating the law.

On one hand, the federal government is getting what it wanted when the Obama Administration announced two major campaigns to raise awareness and catalyze change. On the other, the ED received 123 Title IX complaints in the 2014 fiscal year alone, a figure that does not seem to be leveling off.

According to the Huffington Post, three Democrats in the U.S. Senate are asking Congress to direct more money toward the ED's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the group that handles Title IX Clery Act complaints. Since 1995, the OCR's staff decreased from 788 full-time workers to 544 while complaints have risen from 4,981 to 9,989.

In 2009, the ED fielded 20 sexual discrimination complaints and are now considering 68 in the first half of the current fiscal year. 109 schools are under an open investigation for such complaints, compared to 55 a year ago.

"This data underscores that more must be done to address the backlog of ongoing Title IX investigations into how college campuses handle sexual assault, including the UVA investigation that has been pending since June 2011," Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said in a statement Tuesday.

Title IX protects against sexual discrimination and failing to adequately investigate a student's sexual misconduct complaint is a direct violation. The Clery Act requires schools to disclose all crimes committed and reported on campus. Violations of either can result in fines and loss of federal funding.

President Obama proposed a 31 percent increase for OCR's budget, which the department would use to increase its staff, the HP learned. Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, told the HP the department knew what it was doing when it made campus sexual assault a priority.

"We knew when we issued the guidance we did in 2011 calling out sexual violence as a civil rights issue," she said, "we knew that would increase the visibility of the issue."

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