Carly Mee, a student at Occidental College, center, talks with other students during the Oxy Sexual Assault Coalition (OSAC) sexual assault awareness night campout at the college campus in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Friday, April 19, 2013. A group of Occidental students and alumni filed a Title IX complaint with the Education Department on April 18 saying the school doesnt meet federal standards for preventing and responding to rapes and other sexual assaults on campus. Photographer: Patrick Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The ongoing federal government shutdown has forced the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to suspend its investigations into colleges and universities that are alleged to have violated Title IX, the federal gender equity law, in the handling of sexual violence on their campuses.

"OCR investigations are not an excepted activity and have been suspended until the shutdown ends," Education Department spokesperson Cameron French told The Huffington Post. "Approximately 94 percent of department staff is on furlough as a result of the shutdown."

The shutdown also suspends Clery compliance inquiries by the Education Department into allegations that certain colleges have under-reported sex crimes on campus. Many of these investigations have been the result of complaints filed by students, faculty and recent alumni.

Complainants have not been officially notified by the department of the suspension. Multiple complainants told HuffPost that when they reached out to their contacts in the investigations, they often received automated replies saying the investigator was not working due to the shutdown.

The shutdown doesn't cancel the investigations, but Education Department officials cannot work on them until the government reopens.