Yep, citing the old 'on many sides' canard, Betsy DeVos said she intends to re-write Obama era rules on enforcing Title IX, a civil rights landmark that protects rape victims on college campuses.
Because your president is a sexual assaulter and both siderist to Nazis, Betsy. The Hill reports on the speech given by DeVos this morning:
"....we must do better because the current approach isn’t working,” she said. “Washington has burdened schools with increasingly elaborate and confusing guidelines that even lawyers find difficult to understand and navigate.”
DeVos claimed the current system has led to hundreds of cases in the department’s Office of Civil Rights mostly filed by students who reported sexual misconduct and believed their schools let them down. But she said the system has also generated dozens of lawsuits by students punished for sexual misconduct, who also believe their schools let them down.
DeVos said any school that fails to take a report of sexual assault seriously commits discrimination and a school that uses a biased system toward finding someone guilty of sexual assault also commits discrimination.
Both sides!
The advocacy group "Know your IX" writes:
Before the Education Department took action to protect survivors, and hold schools accountable, too many young people were forced to drop classes they shared with their rapists, take long leaves of absence, or even leave school entirely. The Department’s guidance, which outlined survivors’ rights under longstanding federal law, was a response to this urgent reality. Today’s announcement risks taking us back to to the days when sexual violence routinely compromised survivors’ access to education and schools swept sexual assault under the rug.
We firmly believe campus discipline must be procedurally fair to both survivors and accused students – but DeVos and the Trump Administration have given us every indication their goal isn’t equality, but helping abusers and rapists avoid accountability. We have no faith that a President who brags about sexually assaulting women is interested in building a system that’s fair for survivors.
No matter what Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump say, Title IX is the law of the land. Schools are still required by federal civil rights law to take sexual violence seriously, even if the Trump Administration does not.
This is such a travesty. But then again having Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary is a travesty, too.
