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Friday, September 22, 2017

End of Title 9 Dear Colleague Letter (Kind of)

News reports indicate that Secretary of Education De Vos has scrapped the Title 9 "Dear Colleague" letter:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos scrubbed Obama-era guidance for universities investigating sexual assaults on campus, replacing the program with temporary rules.

DeVos has called the existing rules unfair against those accused of an assault.

“Schools must continue to confront these horrific crimes and behaviors head-on,” she said in a statement Friday. “There will be no more sweeping them under the rug. But the process also must be fair and impartial, giving everyone more confidence in its outcomes.”

DeVos released a temporary Q&A to guide schools on investigating assaults under the Title IX law, which prevents sexual-based discrimination in higher education.

It will allow them to choose which set of standards they want to use when probing an assault.

Her move does away with a 2011 directive that became known as the “Dear Colleague Letter," on how to enforce the 45-year-old Title IX law...

Full story at http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/devos-obama-era-rules-title-ix-article-1.3513555

Note: Item from before the announcement:

...Under the guidance of the (Obama-era) letter, which was issued in 2011, colleges are mandated to adjudicate cases based on a "preponderance of evidence," a lower standard of proof that finds guilt in cases where an assault is more likely to have occurred than not. Ms. Napolitano said that the "preponderance" standard is appropriate in sexual-assault cases, adding that the University of California would continue to employ it regardless of whether the federal government dictated as much...

Source: http://www.chronicle.com/article/Napolitano-Riffs-on-DeVos/241251

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