Plugin de validação do jQuery, IE7 “SCRIPT3: Member not found”

Eu tenho o seguinte:

<html>
    <head>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div>
            <form method="post">
                <div id="questions">    
                    <label for="question-6">Name of Course:</label>
                    <input type="text" name="name_of_course[response]" value="" id="question-6" class="required">
                    <label class="control-label" for="reporting-year">Reporting Year: </label>
                    <select name="reporting_year" id="reporting-year">
                        <option value="-1" selected="selected">Select option...</option>
                        <option value="4">2013-2014</option>
                        <option value="1">2012-2013</option>
                        <option value="2">2011-2012</option>
                        <option value="3">2010-2011</option>
                    </select>
                </div>
                <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Save Entry" class="btn">
            </form>
        </div>
        <script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery.js"></script>
        <script src="//ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jquery.validate/1.10.0/jquery.validate.min.js"></script>
        <script>
            $(function(){
                jQuery.validator.addMethod("notEqual", function(value, element, param) {
                        return this.optional(element) || value !== param;
                        }, "Please select an option");
                $('form').validate({
                    rules:{
                        'reporting_year': {
                            notEqual: "-1"
                        }
                    }
                });
            });
        </script>
    </body>
</html>

O navegador favorito de todos, o IE7 (o IE10 com compatibilidade, na verdade) está relatando o seguinte erro no console:

SCRIPT3: Membro não encontrado.

jquery.js, linha 2525, caractere 4

Claro IE8 e acima funcionam bem, mas meu cliente está usando o IE7.

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