Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Thursday that she plans to replace Obama-era directives on campus sexual assault.
In a Thursday meeting at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, DeVos pledged to make the current “failed system” more fair for both sexual assault survivors and those accused of sexual assault, according to a Washington Post report.
Then-President Barack Obama established a directive guiding universities in their handling of sexual harassment and assault allegations, according to a Politico report. The directive pushed universities to protect students by adding requirements to Title IX, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination.
The Trump administration will work to revamp federal guidelines during the next few months. They will seek public input to replace the current system.
Supporters of DeVos worry about false accusations and say the current standards allow universities to violate accused students’ due process rights. Current guidelines use the “preponderance of evidence” standard to decide cases, which means students and employees are found to “more likely have than have not” committed sexual harassment or assault. It’s a lower standard than the criminal justice system’s “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” standard.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, has long fought to reverse Obama-era sexual assault policies. A recent FIRE report found that most universities do not guarantee students will be presumed innocent until proven guilty, require fact-finders to be impartial or allow students to cross-examine witnesses during hearings.
A FIRE news release called DeVos’s statement “both timely and vitally important.”
“Colleges did not simply ‘forget’ obvious principles of fairness like impartiality, the presumption of innocence, and the right to confront one’s accuser: They were reacting to government policy that made it clear that sticking to these principles was a ticket to interminable and intrusive federal investigations,” Robert Shibley, the FIRE Executive Director, said in the news release.
Meanwhile, advocates have said the current system does not do enough to protect sexual assault survivors.
Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, called DeVos’s announcement “a blunt attack on survivors of sexual assault” in a news release.
“This misguided approach signals a green light to sweep sexual assault further under the rug,” she said in the release. “We refuse to return to the days when schools could mistreat survivors with impunity.”
Ohio University President Duane Nellis released a statement after Devos’ announcement. He said OU would “monitor the public comment period” and advocate “a safe and healthy learning and working environment for all members of our community.”
The debate over the effectiveness of current university policies came to OU's campus last spring when allegations came to light that English professor Andrew Escobedo sexually harassed and groped female students over the course of a decade.
“We are steadfast in our efforts to provide Title IX’s guarantees of equitable access to educational and fair employment opportunities,” he said in the statement. “This includes the commitment to identify, stop, remediate, and prevent sexual misconduct on our campuses."
Enraged students and Athens residents held a rally in February, demanding his firing. They hung a banner from the balcony of Ellis Hall reading “stop protecting predatory professors” and said the university was taking too long to fire Escobedo.
Escobedo resigned Aug. 24, more than a year after graduate students Susanna Hempstead and Christine Adams filed the complaints against him that triggered a lengthy university investigation. Escobedo was facing termination, but would have still had a hearing before a Faculty Senate committee on Sept. 1 and a vote by the OU Board of Trustees before the university officially decided to terminate him and dismiss his tenure. His resignation will take effect Nov. 1.
Hempstead and Adams have filed a complaint in federal court claiming that the university remained deliberately indifferent to earlier allegations of wrongdoing by Escobedo, allowing his behavior to continue and eventually violating Hempstead and Adam’s right to equal access to education.
