Last spring, the Trump administration finished its 18-month regulatory rule-making on Title IX sexual misconduct proceedings on college campuses.
Newspaper editorial boards and even Mike Bloomberg ask the president to leave Trump administration rules in place.
The Republican leaders of the House and Senate education committees urged Cardona last week to keep the regulation "In place and unchanged." The rule-making was "a much needed change from years of non-binding guidance documents issued by the Department without stakeholder feedback," Sen. Richard Burr and Rep. Virginia Foxx wrote.
Bloomberg would go even further, getting colleges "Entirely out of the business of investigating and adjudicating criminal misconduct." The former acting chief of the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, who helped draft the Title IX proposal in 2017, contrasted President Biden's proposed Title IX policy with his cautious approach to sexual harassment allegations against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Colleges are no longer required to "Put students and professors through Title IX investigations for an off-color joke or sex-related academic discussions." The Los Angeles Times editorial board called for "Minor adjustment" of the regulation but "Certainly not a swing back" to the Obama administration's guidance, which "Ignored common traditions of due process" while prompting colleges to favor accusers.
These elements are "Not some wild idea" but simply reflect 14th Amendment protections: "The regs just basically turn those [court] decisions into an enforceable federal rule." Colleges ignore the regulation at their own peril, she said.
Bazelon thinks the regulation's definition of sexual harassment could be the most vulnerable element to challenge, given that courts have issued different interpretations of the concept.
Some colleges "Didn't even guarantee accused students the right to a hearing" and were only given "a summary of a report from a single investigator," he said.
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