ACTIVISTS Democrats & Media Keep Smearing DeVos Over New TitleIX Rules That Give Students More Options For Seeking Justice
With an eye toward restoring a measure of fairness to adjudicating campus sexual misconduct, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced new standards for such procedures recently. Some in the media seemed determined to misrepresent these changes, and are uncritically parroting claims from victims’ advocacy groups who think any attempt to reform Title IX—the federal statute that forbids sex discrimination—is an attack on sexual assault survivors. The worst example is an article from Abbey Crain, whose article at Alabama.com makes several significant errors. “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ proposed changes for how schools handle Title IX cases would allow students accused of sexual assault to cross-examine their victim,” writes Crain. This is simply untrue. The new rules specify that an accused student’s lawyer or support person must conduct the cross-examination. Crain then turns the article over to Madeline Anscombe, a victims’ rights activist who claims the changes would “limit ways students who are sexually assaulted could seek justice.” The new rules give students more options for seeking justice. They permit accusers who do not wish to undergo the full-court treatment to seek informal resolution, mediation, restorative justice, or any other option that satisfies both parties. A piece in The Atlantic also leaves readers with a false impression of the DeVos rules. “Betsy DeVos’s Sexual-Assault Rules Would Let the Accused Cross-Examine Accusers,” the headline reads. Again, that’s not really true: Representatives for the accused will question the accusers, and vice versa. The Atlantic, it should be noted, has done some great work on the myriad problems with Title IX enforcement. The magazine ran Emily Yoffe’s terrific three-part series on the subject, and staff writer Conor Friedersdorf has penned an excellent defense of DeVos’ new rules. He also took the American Civil Liberties Union to task for coming out against the reforms—and, essentially, against due process. Prominent Democrats have also condemned DeVos: Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has accused her and the Trump administration at large of perpetuating “the most anti-woman, anti-student and anti-equality agenda in recent memory.” No amount of hyperbole is too over-the-top for DeVos’s critics…Perhaps the Title IX activist community wants everyone accused of sexual misconduct to be subjected to life-ruining sanction, but I get the sense that some victims are not actually keen on such an outcome. They may want the accused to acknowledge wrongdoing, learn about consent, set things right, and pledge to behave better. Such a course of action won’t always fit the circumstances, of course, but the option is there.
reason.com By Robby Soave new-title-ix-rules-provide-protections-for-the-accused-but-they-do-even-more-for-survivors
