DeVos wants overhaul in campus sex-abuse investigations

Contending that current rules deny justice to both sexual-abuse victims and the accused, and push schools to "overreach," U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Thursday announced her intention to overhaul the government's approach on the handling of sexual-misconduct allegations at colleges.

"With the heavy hand of Washington tipping the balance of her scale, the sad reality is that Lady Justice is not blind on campuses today," DeVos said at George Mason University in Virginia. Of campus sexual-assault cases, she said, "It's no wonder so many call these proceedings kangaroo courts."

DeVos did not indicate that she would immediately rescind the 2011 guidance issued by the Obama administration, which spelled out the responsibilities of schools to investigate allegations of sexual harassment and violence under Title IX, and specified that colleges should use a lower standard of proof than courts to resolve complaints.

Instead, DeVos said she would solicit input "to replace the current approach with a workable, effective, and fair system."

DeVos' remarks drew immediate reaction, with advocates for sexual-assault victims criticizing the education secretary. Know Your IX, an advocacy group, accused her and President Trump of "helping abusers and rapists avoid accountability."

Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) said DeVos' "decision to revisit existing campus sexual-assault protections is an insult to survivors of sexual assault."

Critics of the Obama guidance, meanwhile, cheered DeVos as acknowledging flaws in a system that "victims still don't trust and that the accused have every reason to believe is stacked against them," said Robert Shibley, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

But the effect of DeVos' remarks was unclear. The Association of Title IX Coordinators said that it expects the Department of Education to withdraw the Obama guidance but that "there is only so much" the department could change. The 2011 guidance was based on prior guidelines from 2001 as well as case law, the association noted.

Many local colleges deemed it too early to weigh in on possible changes, while defending their approaches to addressing sexual-assault allegations.

"We will need to study what they ultimately propose," said Ron Ozio, a spokesman for the University of Pennsylvania. "But at Penn we have worked very hard to address the issue of sexual assault on campus by developing policies and procedures that are responsive to our community, fair, and effective."

At Rutgers-Camden, "nothing about today's announcement will affect the serious way that we at Rutgers address sexual assault and harassment," said spokesman Mike Sepanic. "We are national leaders in research on sexual assault and will continue to share our expertise with regulators, rule makers, and others who seek guidance on this important issue."

Of the 2011 guidance, Valerie Harrison, senior adviser to the president for equity, diversity, and inclusion at Temple University, said, "Most of those items we were already doing." But the university "centralized and strengthened our effort" to address sexual assault, including through anonymous reporting and mandatory education programs for students, she said.

Temple is one of several area institutions, along with Pennsylvania State and Swarthmore College, that are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights for issues related to alleged campus sexual violence.

The office is investigating a total of 360 cases at 257 postsecondary institutions, according to the Department of Education. In spring 2014, 55 colleges were being investigated for possible mishandling of sexual-assault and harassment cases.

DeVos said Thursday that the "failed system has generated hundreds upon hundreds of cases" in the civil rights office, as well as "dozens upon dozens of lawsuits … by students punished for sexual misconduct." In both cases, students believe their schools "let them down," she said.

Alison Kiss, executive director of the Clery Center, a nonprofit that advocates for safer campuses, said that not much enforcement was evident prior to the 2011 guidance. That led to "students calling colleges and universities to task, the federal government to task, for enforcing Title IX," she said.

"Is there still more work to be done? Absolutely," Kiss said. But while DeVos characterized schools as ill-equipped to address sexual-misconduct complaints, Kiss noted that many college and university officials had hired Title IX coordinators and other staff in response to the 2011 guidance.

"There have been so many positive changes and improvements in training," she said. Students and communities will likely continue to "hold [colleges] to that standard, to make sure they are enforcing civil rights."