Betsy DeVos's new college plan allows alleged sexual offenders to demand proof from their victims
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Betsy DeVos's new college plan allows alleged sexual offenders to demand proof from their victims
Elise Solé, Yahoo Lifestyle 13 hours ago 
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is preparing new guidelines for how schools should handle sexual offenses. (Photo: Getty Images)
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is introducing new measures to colleges and universities that would, among other changes, allow people accused of sexual misconduct to cross-examine their victims and request evidence.
According to the New York Times , which obtained the proposed rules, last fall DeVos rescinded a 2011 letter prepared by the Obama administration, which detailed how schools that receive federal funding should handle sexual crimes.
“The truth is that the system established by the prior administration has failed too many students,” DeVos said in September 2017. “Survivors, victims of a lack of due process and campus administrators have all told me that the current approach does a disservice to everyone involved.”
As the Times reports, DeVos’s rules would maintain much of the law under Title IX , a federal civil rights law, which protects students from sex and gender discrimination, along with sexual misconduct . However, there are notable changes.
Here is what DeVos’s proposed rules entail:
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A greater burden of proof: Instead of schools’ following the “preponderance-of-evidence standard,” meaning victims only need to prove that a crime occurred “more likely than not,” the evidence that schools use to determine a ruling would be held to a higher standard.
- Increased rights for the accused: Schools would continue to use mediation to make informal decisions — a practice that former President Barack Obama’s guidelines discouraged to avoid intimating the victim — and allow the accused to request evidence from their alleged victims and cross-examine them.
- A narrower definition of sexual harassment: Obama’s guidelines defined the crime more broadly, as “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature. It includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” But DeVos plans to specify the definition as “unwelcome conduct on the basis of sex that is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it denies a person access to the school’s education program or activity.” As the Times reports, unlike Obama’s guidelines, DeVos’s proposed rules do not clarify what a “hostile environment” is for victims but would allow schools to bar a person from entering campus after a “safety and risk assessment.”
- A lesser burden for schools to investigate complaints: Under DeVos’s rules, schools would be legally responsible to investigate formal complaints only if school officials had “actual knowledge” of the crime. A formal complaint is one made to “an official who has the authority to institute corrective measures.” Additionally, schools would be responsible only for pursuing crimes that occurred on campus or during school programs, versus those that occurred in off-campus housing. According to Obama’s guidelines, reports the Times , schools were required to deal with complaints no matter where they occurred.
- The option for schools to provide “supportive measures to students” who don’t want to file written complaints: With the goal of keeping kids in school, the institutions would be able to provide “nondisciplinary individualized services” and those that are “non-punitive, time-limited, and narrowly tailored.” Examples: counseling, campus escorts, and changes in housing.
- A presumption of innocence for accused parties: According to the Times , “The administration explicitly says that just as an institution’s treatment of a complainant could constitute sex discrimination, so would the treatment of the accused.”
Education Department spokesperson Liz Hill told the Times that the department was “in the midst of a deliberative process,” and the Times’ reporting “is premature and speculative, and therefore, we have no comment.”
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center , one in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and more than 90 percent of sexual assault victims on college campuses don’t report the crime.
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Now you can have the rapists cross examining their victims.
And the victims can cross-examine the accused. The proposed rules apply to other forms of sexual misconduct, btw.
I'm sure that victims of sexual assault want nothing more than to see and talk to their rapists again.
/s
Their lawyers can speak for them.
The uneducated and people with poor rationale skills will no doubt dispute that. Which is cool, because I love to laugh at those whose inability to see the forest for the trees equate that lack of foresight for intellect and will invariably say something stupid.
They need to hire lawyers now for college? Hope they're rich enough to pay for lawyers and tuition.
Yep. I'm laughing pretty danged hard.
Oh please. How quickly we've forgotten the high profile cases that were false allegations of sexual misconduct against:
These are just a few who were falsely accused and all needed lawyers. By the same token, female students who are falsely accused of sexual misconduct ALSO need lawyers.
Perhaps you should stop guessing, because I haven't defended anyone.
There is no doubt that there have been some false allegations. I've already said that. Let's put that in perspective, jasper .
Cite .
I'm curious as to why the rabid defense of the few without regard to the many. And we've already stated that lawyers can be just as brutal to the victim as their clients are. So a female student should hire a lawyer that in many cases cannot be afforded, is that your stance? So she can victimized twice and pay for it?
It seems you are.
I'm curious as to how you post this citation...which very clearly explains that there are obviously vastly more false reports than authorities allow to be counted....as evidence of "defense of the few".
No no no. Only male students should have to hire lawyers.
Better yet....never mind the lawyers. Let's just build a gallows in the quad, and any time a female student accuses someone we'll just hang them right there.
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“The truth is that the system established by the prior administration has failed too many students,” DeVos said in September 2017. “Survivors, victims of a lack of due process and campus administrators have all told me that the current approach does a disservice to everyone involved.”
BULLSHIT
The campus administrators would prefer to sweep these cases under the rug.
Sexual crimes are heinous and certainly do need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. False claims of sexual crimes are even more heinous and equally in need full prosecution.
As noted earlier everyone is entitled to a vigorous defense to assure the accused are truly guilty. Good on Sec, Devos. This appears to assure that ....... some folks visceral hatred of her not withstanding ....
Really? Is this the hill man? Do you really want to stand by the statement that someone falsely being accused of rape is worse than someone being
Seriously? So what, victims now have to document their rapes in real time for it to be convincing enough?
See 5.1.2 and 5.3.2
If a person is SUSPECTED of rape 'in the REAL world', they are arrested and their victim is assisted/protected by law enforcement, medical staff and counselors.
We don't WAIT until AFTER the perpetrator is FOUND GUILTY before we remove them from the community and if they make bail, LIMIT their access to the victim and any FUTURE victims.
So WHY are college campuses any different.
HOW? Oh and HOW do Devos' changes to policy PROTECT the victim or future victims in any way?
Depends on what type of victim you're talking about. A rape victim or a person falsely accused of a crime. Both are victims. Do you feel one is worth more or less than the other?
And it takes a lot more than simply being "suspected" of rape to be arrested and you know it.
Not nearly as many as the number of young women who have had their lives ruined, their sense of safety and security shattered, and their bodies violated but end up being dismissed and even maligned for making any accusations against their attacker. Not nearly as many as the number of girls who have felt like they were powerless and simply had to suffer through it because they were told by school administrators or peers that they simply wouldn't be believed without having collected some DNA evidence at the time even if that wasn't physically possible. Not nearly as many as the number of women who, for the rest of their lives, live with PTSD, who no longer feel safe in the presence of men, who often suffer daily in silence or have even taken their own lives due to the overwhelming depression that became their norm after an assault.
So please do forgive me for not shedding any tears for the handful of wrongly accused young men who didn't like being accused. I agree, false accusations are a terrible thing, but so is the rape and sexual assault of our daughters, sisters and wives, so we shouldn't be working on making it harder for them to be believed, we should be working to make sure they know they have our support, love and create tools for them to be better protected and have the ability to seek justice when they are assaulted and abused.
Actually a person who hasn't been found guilty is called a suspect. Everyone in a jail cell that is awaiting trial is a suspect. So NO, it DOESN'T take MORE than being a suspect to be arrested.
Secondly, y'all whip out the canard about false rape allegations. Less than 5% of rapes that are investigated are found that "no crime has been committed".
A very small percentage of children whose parents claimed to have been kidnaped were actually killed by that parent but I NEVER see anyone say that we shouldn't believe parents until we can PROVE a kidnapping actually happened. We ACT in the interest of the victim.
It's always great to see those who hate the bill of rights identify themselves so readily.
Thanks for posting this. Who knew people in America think it's okay to punish citizens without proof?
How is this an undue burden?
Betsy DeVos is a very wealthy woman (she inherited it all).
She makes laws that favor rich people.
Gosh.
What do her wealth and how she obtained it have to do with her job?
Only Congress can make laws.
She bought her position in Rump's administration. That's how.
You forgot to include a link to prove that your claim is factual. Then again, maybe it's only opinion?
Actually not, jasper . While it's true she didn't contribute to Trump's campaign:
it's further true that her family is wealthy and her husband is as well. And Trump smells money. He becomes aroused about money.
Cite .
Trump sees money as a means to an end. He intends on filling his swamp to the fuckin' brim. He has counted on the low intellect of his constituents and has called them idiots from the outset. He still calls them idiots and they're too deplorably stupid to get it .
Cite .
They have nothing to do with her job, although they explain how she was chosen. She is the sister of Eric Prince, of Blackwater infamy.
Her wealth and how she got it are essential to understanding the rules she makes.
Thank you for your Snopes and The Daily Intelligencer links, but neither addresses the question I asked Tessy in comment 8.1.2 . She claimed that Betsy DeVos "bought" her Sec'y. of Ed position; I asked her to prove that this is what DeVos did.
Your two links merely show:
Ask away Wally, ask away.
I also noted she didn't contribute to Trump. And?
Regarding your other complaint, jasper, perhaps you should report me if you find it so offensive.
From Walt O'Hara , Consultant at U.S. Department of Defense (1986-present):
Prove her qualifications.
And I said it was the love affair with money that consumes Trump. Perhaps she didn't word it the way you have chosen for her to have it worded it, jasper. DeVos didn't have the blind loyalty that serves as currency for the Liar-In-Chief, but no one gets into the Trump administration without some kind of currency, be it financial or blind loyalty. He surrounds himself with crooks and liars, he's a crook and liar, but rarely does anyone get into the Trump administration based on knowledge and expertise.
So Tessy was right. Unless you're a nitpicker, DeVos got the job using some kind of currency he covets.
Thank you darlin' - you always word it so much more artfully than I am able to express myself, appreciated.
On that note, I am about to go into NewsTalkers jail for two days so I'm going to lock this thread.
I enjoyed the majority of the contributions and I thank you all.
To those who are not so, should I say friendly, to myself and vice versa, (and I certainly mean no offense) I say Meh!
A safe and happy Labor Day weekend to all!
To my friends - if you'd like to send a private note through chat I'd welcome it.
Take care!
You're correct. In a 60 Minutes interview, she indicated her cluelessness:
DeVos is out of touch. She's clueless and even the WH had early on indicated their reservations. The WH indicated reservations. The WH. What does that tell you? And what's with her lack of command of the English language: "I have not intentionally visited schools...." You mean she may have unintentionally visited schools? Did she pass one on the way to work and mistook it for a Starbucks and stopped into the cafeteria?
In total fairness:
Cite .
*Imagine ... president of the Fordham Institute making such an informed opinion. Operative word: "Opinion." You'd think the president of an institution of higher learning would know better than to make an empty opinion. Well, if that's the case, I'm not sure Betsy's up for the job simply because the press is less friendly. It would seem to me that if that's the case, it would make sense that she visits and sits with heads of school districts to listen to and address issues. But what does learning have to do with being the Education Secretary, after all. Wait. What??
Stupid is as stupid does.
~Forrest Gump
DeVos may be clueless... but it is certain that she doesn't give a shit.
The ultra-wealthy are different. They are a separate species. They see us hoi-poloi as "other". If they are human, then we are not. We are creatures that exist to serve them, directly or indirectly.
This is psychologically necessary. Owning several mansions (as DeVos does) is only possible if the people who are hurting are not really people.
I don't believe for one New York minute that Betsy DeVos gives a fuck about working class kids
Betsy DeVos is preparing new guidelines for how schools should handle sexual offenses
O this ought to be great coming from one of trump's "Best of the Best!" ... lol
...........................
DeVos' Michigan schools experiment gets poor grades
Betsy DeVos, has spent two decades successfully pushing "school choice" in her home state of Michigan — a policy that she and her husband vowed in 1999 would “fundamentally improve education.”
Except the track record in that state shows that it hasn’t.
Despite two decades of charter-school growth, the state’s overall academic progress has failed to keep pace with other states: Michigan ranks near the bottom for fourth- and eighth-grade math and fourth-grade reading on a nationally representative test, nicknamed the “Nation’s Report Card.” Notably, the state’s charter schools scored worse on that test than their traditional public-school counterparts, according to an analysis of federal data.
Great Lakes Education Project Executive Director Gary Naeyaert said “Is Michigan the poster boy for what we should be doing nationally? I sure hope not,” Naeyaert said. “We’re not doing anywhere near what we need to be doing when it comes to educating kids.”
Betsy DeVos and God’s Plan for Schools
By Katherine Stewart
BOSTON — At the rightmost edge of the Christian conservative movement, there are those who dream of turning the United States into a Christian republic subject to “biblical laws.” In the unlikely figure of Donald J. Trump, they hope to have found their greatest champion yet. He wasn’t “our preferred candidate,” the Christian nationalist David Barton said in June, but he could be “God’s candidate.”
Consider the president-elect’s first move on public education. Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University , the largest Christian university in the nation, says that he was Mr. Trump’s first pick for secretary of education. Liberty University teaches creationism alongside evolution.
When Mr. Falwell declined , President-elect Trump offered the cabinet position to Betsy DeVos. In most news coverage, Ms. DeVos is depicted as a member of the Republican donor class and a leading advocate of school vouchers programs.
That is true enough, but it doesn’t begin to describe the broader conservative agenda she’s been associated with.
Betsy DeVos stands at the intersection of two family fortunes that helped to build the Christian right. In 1983, her father, Edgar Prince, who made his money in the auto parts business, contributed to the creation of the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center identifies as extremist because of its anti-L.G.B.T. language.
Her father-in-law, Richard DeVos Sr., the co-founder of Amway , a company built on “multilevel marketing” or what critics call pyramid selling, has been funding groups and causes on the economic and religious right since the 1970s.
Ms. DeVos is a chip off the old block. At a 2001 gathering of conservative Christian philanthropists, she singled out education reform as a way to “advance God’s kingdom.” In an interview , she and her husband, Richard DeVos Jr., said that school choice would lead to “greater kingdom gain.”
And so the family tradition continues, funding the religious right through a network of family foundations — among others, the couple’s own, as well as the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, on whose board Ms. DeVos has served along with her brother, Erik Prince , founder of the military contractor Blackwater. According to Conservative Transparency, a liberal watchdog that tracks donor funding through tax filings, these organizations have funded conservative groups including: the Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal juggernaut of the religious right; the Colorado-based Christian ministry Focus on the Family ; and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy .
Like other advocates of school voucher programs, Ms. DeVos presents her plans as a way to improve public education and give families more choice. But the family foundations’ money supports a far more expansive effort.
The evangelical pastor and broadcaster D. James Kennedy, whose Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church is a beneficiary of DeVos largess, said in a 1986 sermon that children in public education were being “brainwashed in Godless secularism.” More recently, in 2005, he told followers to “exercise godly dominion” over “every aspect and institution of human society,” including the government.
Jerry Falwell Sr. outlined the goal in his 1979 book “America Can Be Saved!” He said he hoped to see the day when there wouldn’t be “any public schools — the churches will have taken them over and Christians will be running them.”
Vouchers are part of the program. According to an educational scholar, they originally came into fashion among Southern conservatives seeking to support segregation in schools. But activists soon grasped that vouchers could be useful in a general assault on public education. As Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, which receives support from a DeVos-funded donor group, explained : “Complete privatization of schooling might be desirable, but this objective is politically impossible for the time being. Vouchers are a type of reform that is possible now.”
The DeVoses well understand that, stripped of specious language about reform and choice, such a plan for public education would be deeply unpopular. In 2002, Mr. DeVos Jr. advised a Heritage Foundation audience that “we need to be cautious about talking too much about these activities.”
The public school system faces the most immediate threat, but it is not the only institution at risk. The Christian right has already won a number of key roles in the Trump administration.
The head of the presidential transition, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, is an avid voucher proponent. As governor of Indiana, he expanded a voucher program that now funnels $135 million a year to private schools, almost all of them religious. Mr. Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, favors religious tests for new immigrants and objects to chief justices with “secular mind-sets.” The nominee for secretary of health and human services, Tom Price, is a member of a physicians’ organization aligned with conservative Christian positions on abortion and other issues.
Mr. Trump’s senior strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, may not appear to be a religious warrior, but he shares the vision of a threatened Christendom.
“I believe the world, and particularly the Judeo-Christian West, is in a crisis,” he said at a conference in 2014. This was “a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism.”
What is distinctive about the Christian right’s response to this perceived crisis is its apocalyptic conviction that extreme measures are needed. There is nothing conservative about this agenda; it is radical. Gutting public education will be just the beginning.
An Op-Ed article on Tuesday about Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s selection for secretary of education, misstated a detail of the history of the school-voucher program in Indiana. The program began under Gov. Mitch Daniels, not under his successor, Mike Pence.
Katherine Stewart is the author of “The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children.”
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter .
And then there's this:
a federal review in 2015 found “an unreasonably high” percentage of charter schools on the list of the state’s lowest-performing schools. The number of charter schools on that list had doubled since 2010, after the passage of a law a group financed by Ms. DeVos pushed to expand the schools. The group blocked a provision in that law that would have prevented failing schools from expanding or replicating.
Ms. DeVos, 58, got into education advocacy primarily as a backer of vouchers, and has served on the board of several organizations that have campaigned for them across the country.
A ballot initiative she led to establish vouchers in Michigan failed in 2000. The next year, she established the Great Lakes Education Project, which became an ardent proponent of charter school expansion, and has donated generously to candidates who have supported it.
The Michigan law pushed by Ms. DeVos to establish charter schools 20 years ago allows an unusually large number of organizations to start such schools, yet established little mechanism for oversight . Even Republican supporters of charter schools say the law has allowed failing charter schools to expand or replicate.
Last spring, the DeVos-backed group was the chief force behind the defeat of legislation that would have established standards for identifying and closing failing schools, both charter and public, in Detroit, where a flood of charter schools in the past decade has created what even charter school supporters call chaos .
"Best of the best !!"
lol
So true Steve. A lot of these charter schools - the so-called overseers would line their pockets with the money and the children would show up for school one day to find it closed.
Also, a lot of funding for these charter schools comes out of public education monies also. THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.
Good job.
Thanks the computer did all the work though....lol
True enough, but some less educated people with computers have linked the Enquirer cover of Pizzagate. The computer is a tool; you're the genius behind it.
LOL... Thanks no, no pitza gate on this computer.
She is a poor excuse of a woman....
I think she should be restricted to teaching a course on "how to buy political influence" only !
There she seems to accel.
..................................
Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick, are billionaires who have funneled millions of dollars in campaign donations to support lawmakers who push school choice.
All told, the DeVoses have contributed at least $7 million to lawmakers and the state Republican Party in recent years, and their influence can be seen in just about every major piece of education-related legislation in Michigan since the 1990s. That includes the 1993 law that permitted charters in the state and a 2011 vote to lift a cap on the number of charter schools in the state.
Great comment and true words.
Lol, I can see the defense now, " can you provide photo or video evidence of when he raped you?"
So if you have a daughter or close female family member etc in this school situation where she is raped - do you really want to look at her and say " it's ok honey, now you have to go see him, let him question you and provide him the evidence he wants from you to substantiate your rape claim !! and of course, you can ask him questions too ! "
as if we don't have enough scandals with schools covering up sexual crimes already....
could someone explain this ? does it mean that your daughter could be the victim of unwanted constant sexual advances - yet it wouldn't be harassment since she could still go to class ?
great... now we can have more cover-ups because of the myriad of definitions of " hostile environment "....
good ! very good to hear
oh... so if you are scared, intimidated, ashamed or don't feel comfortable telling " an official who has the authority to institute corrective measures " then the school doesn't have legal responsibility to investigate... even if you told the RA who you feel comfortable talking to about such a horrible event ..
now this one i can agree with - the school is responsible for it's own property .. so if during an off-campus party some sexual assault happens then they should definitely call the police and file a report .
yes it's good to provide those options - fantastic ! if the victim is not able to file a written complaint ( which does happen ) then the school can still do something about it which is a good thing.
all quoted pieces of article from: ( which is linked in the seeded article )
Campus Sexual Assault
Cite .
It's called "DUE PROCESS" - something Barak Obama denied when he corrupted title nine. If you believe in the Constitution, everyone has it. The burden of proof is on the accuser
Due Process is a restriction on GOVERNEMENT actions. NONE of the rule changes effect the GOVERNMENT.
Oh please DO tell us all about how Obama 'corrupted' Title IX. Perhaps you can concentrate on the 2011 DoE guidelines that Devos rescinded. From what the seed indicates, some of the changes that Devos is making aren't connected to the 2011 changes.
Unless of course you are a student of an 'school's education program' , then Due Process doesn't apply, you are at the mercy of the 'grievance procedures' of that program.
BTW, Title IX REQUIRES schools to PROTECT students from sexual discrimination and violence.
That is an outrageous statement and yes it was Obama who got us to this point:
"Federal panel blocks suspension of University of Cincinnati graduate student, saying institution did not respect his constitutional rights after he was accused of sexual assault."
"A federal appeals court has agreed to block the University of Cincinnati’s suspension of a student, saying the institution violated his rights by not allowing him to question the female student who accused him of sexually assaulting her.
The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit follows the announcement Friday from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that she would pull guidance on Title IX investigations and adjudication the Obama administration released in 2011."
You really should READ that ruling.
Please cite which of Devos' rule changes effect the GOVERNMENT.
Cite? There are 6 rule changes that pertain directly to what we are talking about... If you can't or won't recognize that obvious fact, I'm really wasting my time.
Great so you DON'T need me to go look it up for you. So now, which one of those changes effect the GOVERNMENT.
What relevance does the NUMBER of changes have to whether ANY of them effect the GOVERNMENT? If all you have is deflection, you're wasting MY time.
I can't be more clear nor can I improve on what Iv'e already said......Oh wait, maybe Rich Lowry said it better:
"A judicial process that doesn’t allow the accused to cross-examine his accuser or reliably see the evidence against him is a civil libertarian’s nightmare. It traduces every principle of fairness and is blatantly un-American.
Yet Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is about to get savaged for replacing just such a process with something more in keeping with our longstanding legal norms.
The Education Department is preparing new rules that would roll back the monstrously unfair Obama-era requirements for how colleges handle sexual-assault and harassment allegations . It will be a significant advance for due process, which is almost as out of style on campus as free speech.
In one of its least defensible actions, the Obama administration used its Office for Civil Rights to impose its preferred procedures for handling sexual-assault cases on all the universities in the country that receive federal funds. It did it via a 19-page “Dear Colleague” letter, in the name of Title IX, the provision in federal law prohibiting sexual discrimination in education.
The process was terrible. It blew right by the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires public notice and comment before such rules go into effect. And the substance was worse. If the letter reads as if it was written by inflamed activists who had no interest in balanced proceedings, that’s because it was.
It required colleges to adopt a “preponderance of evidence” standard rather than a “clear and convincing” standard.
It more or less forbade colleges from allowing the cross-examination of accusers.
It adopted a remarkably broad definition of sexual harassment to include “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature.”
The administration also encouraged the use of a “single investigator-adjudicator system,” i.e., one person as investigator, judge and jury.
The Obama rules are medieval in the sense that they ignore central developments in Anglo-American justice that arose hundreds of years ago.
In their important book “ The Campus Rape Frenzy ,” KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor Jr. describe how the rules often played out: “Start with an alcohol-soaked set of facts that no state’s criminal law would consider sexual assault. Add an incomplete ‘investigation,’ unfair procedures, and a disciplinary panel uninterested in evidence of innocence. Stir in a de facto presumption of guilt based on misguided Obama administration dictates, ideological zeal, and fear of bad publicity.”
The result has, inevitably, been jaw-dropping miscarriages of justice. Everyone should want perpetrators of sexual assault to be punished — and in the criminal-justice system, not just by colleges — but elementary protections for the accused can’t be discarded in the process.
One reason the Obama rules were so lopsided is that they were crafted in an atmosphere of moral panic. It was assumed that there was a spiraling epidemic of sexual assault on campus. Taylor and Johnson note, to the contrary, that sexual assaults of female college students dropped by more than half between 1997 and 2013, and that young women in college are less likely to be assaulted than those who are not in college.
The Obama rules have been receiving a battering in the courts, where due process is still taken seriously.
A US district court judge wrote in a 2016 ruling against Brandeis University: “If a college student is to be marked for life as a sexual predator, it is reasonable to require that he be provided a fair opportunity to defend himself and an impartial arbiter to make that decision. Put simply, a fair determination of the facts requires a fair process, not tilted to favor a particular outcome, and a fair and neutral fact-finder, not predisposed to reach a particular conclusion.”
This is the animating spirit behind the DeVos changes. They are still being formulated, but a New York Times report suggests that they will correct the worst excesses of the Obama rules and interject fairness into proceedings that were, shamefully, designed to lack it.
comments.lowry@nationalreview.com
Was that better?
Well since you still failed to cite even one change that effects the GOVERNMENT, no.
He's feigning ignorance. One hopes.
"Ma'am, can you please give us any proof? Maybe some identifying features or marks?"
"His dick looks like a baby carrot, but not as long."
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Removed for context
[deleted]
Here are two men who were falsely accused of rape when they were in college who would have benefited from the newly proposed rules:
Two words:
Duke Lacrosse ......
Two words
ONE INCIDENT
Does not negate the true accounts which administrators would rather sweep under the rug than give the college a bad reputation
Why on earth would you think it's only one incident?
And Columbia U's Paul Nungesser, another male VICTIM . "Mattress Girl" even got awards, college credit, and and an invitation to Obama's SOTU address BEFORE it was learned that she was a LIAR.
No said it did which only reaffirms the innocent until proven guilty standard being pushed by DeVos. Good on her for defending EVERYONES 14th amendment rights.
[deleted] Rich bitch Devos is obviously on the side of the administrators who would prefer to sweep these incidents of sexual abuse and rape under the rug in order for the college not to get a bad reputation.
[deleted]
Here's what the phonier than thou rich bitch is doing despite your refusal to see: