In November 2018, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced proposed rule changes specifying how educational institutions that receive federal funding must address claims of gender-based violence, harassment and discrimination in line with Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. For colleges, the proposed changes will govern how institutions adjudicate student disciplinary cases involving sexual harassment, assault and relationship abuse. Ms. DeVos is right to assert that there are problems with the current system, but her proposed revisions to Title IX regulations will create additional, unnecessary barriers for students seeking to report legitimate allegations of sexual misconduct.
The Obama-era guidelines for Title IX compliance came under fire from some legal scholars during their rollout, and the DeVos guidelines do make some needed improvements. For example, under the proposed DeVos guidelines, schools must now hold a live hearing before issuing judgments on sexual assault cases. Currently, many schools—especially those that use an investigator-only model–dispense with these hearings. Under this model, a case investigator also serves as the adjudicator. While the investigator-only model may be cost efficient for schools, it can prevent involved parties from contesting the evidence and any bias that the investigator may have demonstrated. The new regulations would require that the person who investigates the facts be different from the person who ultimately decides the case.
It is troublingly that the DeVos proposal in its current form guarantees those accused of sexual misconduct the right to cross-examine their accuser. Although her guidelines prohibit personal confrontations between involved parties, this requirement could discourage survivors of sexual assault from sharing their stories. The Department of Education should study and determine other, less potentially traumatizing and intrusive means by which the accused can adequately defend him or herself.
DeVos’s rule changes would also rescind the requirement that schools respond to allegations of sexual misconduct that occur outside of their educational programs or activities. This mandate is problematic precisely because many students don’t live in school dorms, and many alleged sexual assaults happen in off campus residences. Similarly, the new regulations soften institutional liability by specifying that schools be in violation of Title IX only if they have actual knowledge of sexual-misconduct allegations and are deliberately indifferent to them.
We at the Voice are concerned with many of these proposed Title IX changes—and the potential for the spread of misinformation about policy as the Department of Education finalizes its Title IX policy. Vox reports that some schools are already changing their policies in anticipation of the implementation of Department of Education rules. We applaud Connecticut College for providing public forums specifically focused on addressing and understanding the DeVos guidelines. Open lines of communication between the Conn administration and students are essential to discerning how policy changes impact our campus population. To that end, this issue of the Voice offers articles that grapple with the personal testimony of sexual assault survivors and that comment on the merits of Title IX guidelines. We urge members of our community with opinions about these proposed rules to submit a public comment at regulations.gov expressing their views on the proposal. The public comment period is open through Jan. 28, but this deadline has been extended to a yet-to-be-announced date.
-Dana
