GREAT NEWS! JUDGE Refuses To Halt TitleIX Regs. It Can Benefit Both Accusers & Accused.
If you’re going to challenge an agency regulation, you’d better show how it violates legal precedents. New York City’s board of education and the state of New York failed miserably in that regard, not even coming close to persuading a federal judge to either halt or push back the Friday effective date of the Department of Education’s Title IX regulation on campus sexual misconduct proceedings.
In a 46-page opinion Sunday, Judge John Koeltl said the plaintiffs overreached in arguing the regulation was “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs federal rulemakings.
The judge notes it took until the Trump administration for the federal government to actually define sexual harassment as “unlawful sex discrimination under Title IX” in regulation, as opposed to facially nonbinding guidance. That was the format chosen by the Obama administration, and as a result, easily junked by its successor. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos gave educational institutions nearly three times longer to prepare than the APA requires – 87 days, putting the effective date in late summer and considering competing burdens from COVID-19, Koeltl notes.
Criticism that accused students get preferential treatment in the regulation is contradicted by the department’s confirmation that it lets “either party equally” challenge a finding “on the basis of procedural irregularity,” the judge said. He noted the department received public comments relaying “personal experiences” with discriminatory application of grievance procedures toward both accusers and accused.
thecollegefix.com– Greg Piper
