Joe Biden is asking Department of Education officials to examine ways to roll back changes to Title IX enacted by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that gave college students accused of sexual assault some protection from being falsely accused.
There was criticism of the rules, with some women’s groups alleging the rules were preventing women from coming forward to report sexual assault. The rules didn’t prevent anything. They only tried to restore due process to sexual assault cases on campus.
The rules that were amended by DeVos were put in place during the Obama administration.
The Obama-era guidance required universities to probe essentially all complaints of sexual misconduct, no matter how long ago they allegedly occurred. It also further required schools to maintain copious records ahead of possible complaints and strongly discouraged schools from “allowing the parties personally to question or cross-examine each other during the hearing.”
“This is where the Obama administration weaponized the schools because they basically said if we find that you have not acted properly in these situations, we’re gonna remove your federal funding,” Mock said.
DeVos said the previous approach did a “disservice to everyone involved” and “every student accused of sexual misconduct must know that guilt is not pre-determined.”
In America, “innocent until proved guilty” is the standard, not the other way around. And DeVos simply sought to level the playing field.
Her rules still shielded alleged victims from having to come face-to-face with accusers or answer questions personally drafted by the accused. But they offered a new guarantee for accused individuals to ask questions through a representative and to cross-examine other witnesses.
The changes by DeVos required that sexual harassment be defined as both “severe and pervasive” – not one or the other as previously labeled – and schools could be held accountable for mishandling complaints only if they acted with “deliberate indifference.”
Biden’s new education secretary, Miguel Cardona, has been non-committal about how he is going to alter the DeVos rule, and Biden issued an executive order on March 8 that sheds little light on what the new administration is going to do.
Unfortunately, the order sheds little light on how the Biden administration intends to change Title IX and, as a result, warrants little practical change for schools, colleges, and universities. The order directs the new Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, to “consider” suspending, revising, or rescinding the 2020 Title IX rule, but does not actually take any action with respect to the Trump-era rule. Similarly, it directs Cardona to issue “new guidance” interpreting the rules, but does not provide any actual guidance now. Perhaps the most interesting part of the order is language directing Cardona to consider “additional enforcement actions” to enforce the new administration’s position on Title IX.
It’s not simply a matter of repealing DeVos’s Title IX rule and substituting Cardona’s. The DeVos rule is embedded in other Title IX provisions that must also be changed. Some analysts say it will take years for Biden to fully reverse the DeVos rule.
The “Believe all Women” nonsense will once again become the standard. And young men will be falsely accused and have their lives ruined because radicals don’t think women ever lie about sexual violence.
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