Doing Away with Obama-Era Rules for Probing College Sexual Assaults

[SolitudeParticipant 116]

Betsy DeVos does away with Obama-era rules for probing college sexual assaults under Title IX

The letter made collegues probe sexual assault cases even if there was an ongoing criminal investigation. The policy also had suspects deemed guilty not by legal means, but whether the act was “more likely than not.”

So while the move was expected, it was still slammed on Friday by those who believed the Education Department didn’t seek much advice of advocacy groups.

“This decision proves that everything DeVos and the Department of Ed said about soliciting comments on the guidance was a SHAM,” the National Women’s Law Center tweeted after the announcement. “DeVos ignored hundreds of thousands of people urging her to keep the guidance, siding with a tiny group of extremists who are against it.”

A “tiny group of extremists who are against it?”

I amazed that any corrective action at all is gaining headway, but it isn’t completely good news.

Obama campus assault guidance gets scrapped under Trump

DeVos’ temporary guidance allows colleges the freedom to decide which standards of evidence they want to use when investigating complaints of sexual assault. Under Obama’s instructions from 2011 and 2014, colleges were told to use “the preponderance of the evidence” standards, while DeVos lets colleges choose between that standard and “the clear and convincing evidence standard,” which is harder to meet.

The temporary guidance will be in place while the Education Department gathers comments and comes up with new rules.

Oh, ok, cool. So, colleges can still decide on a whim whether to f~~~ someone’s life forever without relying on evidence, or can actually rely on established law. Colleges still maintain the freedom to compromise a student’s freedom, it’s just no longer mandated.

“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.” ― Aldous Huxley

[RomulusParticipant 4667]

I was cheered when I read the news, but alas, Lucy pulled the ball just as it was being kicked. All the Dept of Education really did was tell the colleges they “may” use a higher standard of proof then preponderance of evidence. That’s the 51 percent rule. The change isn’t mandated, it just doesn’t require the colleges to us the 51 percent rule…if they chose to use a higher standard.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

[OldBillParticipant]

Seeing as the lawsuits keep piling up, you can bet that schools will be using the “clear and convincing evidence” standard. Using that standard lets them pass the problem off to the police where all such cases should be handled.

The only reason schools adopted the “preponderance” standard in the first place was that Oboingo’s administration threatened to take away their free money if they didn’t.

The threat of losing federal funding is gone and the threat of lawsuits is rising, so schools will go back to the old, higher standard. There will be a few which don’t, but the lawsuits they lose or have to settle will eventually convince them.

Do not date. Do not impregnate. Do not co-habitate. Above all, do not marry. Reclaim and never again surrender your personal sovereignty.

[SolitudeParticipant 116]

Romulus wrote:

That’s the 51 percent rule. The change isn’t mandated, it just doesn’t require the colleges to us the 51 percent rule…if they chose to use a higher standard.

Yes, very frustrating.

“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.” ― Aldous Huxley

[SolitudeParticipant 116]

OldBill wrote:

Seeing as the lawsuits keep piling up, you can bet that schools will be using the “clear and convincing evidence” standard.

Yes, I hope you are right. I remember this absurd case from Amherst in MA a few years ago. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/05/29/amherst/4t6JtKmaz7vlYSrQk5NDyJ/story.html
A drunk guy and a girl at a college party are making out. They go back to a private room and she gives him a blowjob. During the blowjob he says something and she feels guilty and so says she wants to stop. He tries to verbally convince her to keep going. She says no and then they stop, and she leaves. Later that night, she f~~~s a different guy. Then, after talking to her friends, she decides that because the first guy had tried to convince her to keep going, that was rape. The school investigated and despite this story, the evidence below, and a plethora of additional information, they still expelled him for sexual assault.

Another student just sued Amherst for a similar bulls~~~ conviction. I hope they get f~~~ed and raise the tuition even more.

During the 2013 hearing, Jones’s roommate testified that she had learned Jones had exchanged text messages with a resident dorm counselor just after the alleged rape. But the school made no effort to contact the counselor or obtain the texts, according to the hearing record.

When a hearing officer asked Jones about those texts, she replied: “I didn’t want to address what had happened to me and I was in no position yet to accept that it had been rape. So in my text messaging [to counselor] I only said things about the hook-up as if it had been consensual.”

In the lawsuit, Stern argues that the texts contain evidence that make it clear the sexual encounter with Doe was consensual and initiated by Jones; that she deliberately misled the college’s investigator and the hearing board; that she was motivated to make the allegations so her roommate would not blame her for what happened; and that Doe, who was incapacitated that night, is the real victim in the case.

In the texts, which extend over several hours, Jones and the dorm counselor exchanged the following messages:

Jones: “Ohmygod, I jus[sic] did something so [expletive] stupid.”

Counselor: “What did you do?”

Jones responded that she had sex with Doe. Then she expressed concern that her roommate would find out, noting that her roommate’s friends had witnessed the start of the encounter.

The counselor’s recommendation was to blame Doe for the encounter. Her reply: “But I mean [roommate] knows me it’s pretty obvi I wasn’t an innocent bystander.’’

As she was texting with the counselor, Jones was also texting another male classmate to come to her room: “I mean I happen to have my room to myself this weekend if you wanted to come over and entertain me.”

Hours later, Jones had another text exchange with the counselor that indicated she and that classmate had sex after hours of conversation.

In an affidavit he signed in April 2014, the classmate, who turned over his text messages to Doe early last year, said he had sex that February night with Jones, who was friendly and flirtatious, and did not appear “anxious, stressed, depressed or otherwise in distress.’’

“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.” ― Aldous Huxley

[Puffin StuffParticipant 25019]

The last time I posted an article about campus reforms I agreed that this is just rearranging the chairs on the deck while the ship sinks.

Title IX changes at colleges have already been made. The cancer has lodged and now has metastasized to all the colleges in the country.

We lost and now that we have the power to change things she just says that we no longer “have” to hang male students. Colleges will do it because they want to. Because they do. It’s called women’s studies hires and they are everywhere on campus.

Nothing other than regulations eliminating kangaroo courts on campus and referral of all rape accusation to the police will make real changes to the plight of men on campus.

It is not safe for men on college campus and DeVos made some headway but dropped the ball.

Maybe this is just her first step.

I’m not holding my breath.

#icethemout; Remember Thomas Ball. He died for your children.

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