© Michael Brochstein/Alamy Live News.Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, Washington, D.C., March 5th, 2020.
Last week, the United States Department of Education issued new regulations under Title IX concerning how schools must respond to allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment. Predictably, the regulations have been
slammed by groups such as the National Women's Law Center, which has said that they will "make it harder for students who have experienced sexual harassment to come forward and to get the help that many need." Given President Trump's record of disturbing comments about women, including
boasting of sexually aggressive behavior, it's easy to believe that this is an accurate description of regulations set forth by his administration. However, these regulations in fact require a reasonable and balanced approach to a serious problem. They are not about protecting rapists from the consequences of their actions. Rather, they are about
protecting innocent men falsely accused of sexual offenses from having their lives destroyed for something that they did not do. The regulations balance this with the important need to prevent sexual assault and punish those who are in fact guilty of this heinous crime.
To understand why these regulations are necessary, we need to turn the clock back nearly a decade to April 4th, 2011. On that date, the Department of Education
sent a letter to the president of every college and university in the nation. Known as the "Dear Colleague" letter for its opening line, it outlined new requirements on how schools must respond to allegations of sexual assault on campus in order to be in compliance with Title IX, a federal law requiring schools to extend equal opportunities to all students regardless of their sex. There was an implied threat that schools would lose their federal funding if they did not comply.
The issuance of this letter was of questionable legality. A federal law known as the Administrative Procedures Act requires that the public be given notice before any new regulations go into effect with ample time for citizens to submit comments indicating why they support or oppose the proposed regulations and suggesting modifications.
The required notice-and-comment process was bypassed for the "Dear Colleague" letter, depriving the public of the opportunity to weigh in.
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