AS PROMISED, Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has pitched herself further into the fraught politics of campus sexual assault. On September 22nd, she announced that she was rescinding Obama-era directives to universities on how they should investigate and adjudicate sexual assault claims. The move provoked fury. Patty Murray, a Democratic senator from Washington, said the education department was “continuing a pattern of undermining survivors’ rights”. Catherine Lhamon, an official who helped write the reversed regulations, said “this backward step invites colleges to once again sweep sexual violence under the rug”. Sofie Karasek, co-founder of End Rape on Campus, an advocacy organisation, said the intent of the rules was “to protect those who ‘grab’ by the genitals and brag about it”.
Such claims seem to ignore the fact that the original guidance had a number of deep flaws. First, it was issued without a formal period of notice and comment, meaning that it lacked the force of law. Two documents, a letter...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2wfvpDH
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