News leaked Wednesday that the Education Department plans to bring campus sexual misconduct policies in line with basic principles of fairness and due process, and many progressive feminists are fuming.
These criticisms of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos are hard to take seriously, since so many of them contain very basic errors about the administration's revised guidance relating to Title IX, the federal statute that mandates sex and gender equality in education.
As reported earlier by The New York Times, and confirmed independently by Reason, the Education Department plans to abandon several controversial Obama-era policies that deprived accused students of the ability to meaningfully defend themselves in sexual misconduct disputes.
DeVos's proposed plan involves a new Supreme Court definition of sexual misconduct, which the Obama administration defined as "Unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature," as well as "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature." DeVos's proposal defines sexual harassment 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." So don't worry, students; unless a lecherous professor is literally blocking the door of his classroom with his boner, you've got nothing to complain about.
Of course, conduct that falls well short of what Steiner describes above could still violate Title IX under DeVos's new rules.
This is an important step in the right direction, because Title IX has occasionally been used to bring sexual misconduct charges against students who were involved in disputes that really didn't concern the school at all, like this University of Southern California case involving a male student found responsible for violating Title IX because he didn't intervene when another male-a non-student-slapped a girl's butt.
I've seen too many examples of universities initiating Title IX investigations even when the purported victim of sexual misconduct had not complained and was on perfectly good terms with the alleged accuser to think this is anything other than common sense.
http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/30/title-ix-rules-betsy-devos-rape-victim
These criticisms of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos are hard to take seriously, since so many of them contain very basic errors about the administration's revised guidance relating to Title IX, the federal statute that mandates sex and gender equality in education.
As reported earlier by The New York Times, and confirmed independently by Reason, the Education Department plans to abandon several controversial Obama-era policies that deprived accused students of the ability to meaningfully defend themselves in sexual misconduct disputes.
DeVos's proposed plan involves a new Supreme Court definition of sexual misconduct, which the Obama administration defined as "Unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature," as well as "Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature." DeVos's proposal defines sexual harassment 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." So don't worry, students; unless a lecherous professor is literally blocking the door of his classroom with his boner, you've got nothing to complain about.
Of course, conduct that falls well short of what Steiner describes above could still violate Title IX under DeVos's new rules.
This is an important step in the right direction, because Title IX has occasionally been used to bring sexual misconduct charges against students who were involved in disputes that really didn't concern the school at all, like this University of Southern California case involving a male student found responsible for violating Title IX because he didn't intervene when another male-a non-student-slapped a girl's butt.
I've seen too many examples of universities initiating Title IX investigations even when the purported victim of sexual misconduct had not complained and was on perfectly good terms with the alleged accuser to think this is anything other than common sense.
http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/30/title-ix-rules-betsy-devos-rape-victim
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