Ed Dept starts review of DeVos’s Title IX regulation
HIGHER ED DIVE
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
April 6, 2021
Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education said Tuesday it anticipates it will initiate a rulemaking process to amend the Trump administration’s regulation governing how colleges address sexual violence on campuses.
- It will first review the Title IX rule, which limits the sexual misconduct cases that institutions have to investigate and critics say favors the accused.
- The move is in line with executive action President Joe Biden took in March that ordered such an evaluation.
Dive Insight:
Biden pledged to unravel the Title IX rule put forth by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, which was broadly unpopular among campus leaders and advocates for sexual violence prevention.
The regulation took effect in August. It constructs a judiciary-style system for assessing and potentially punishing sexual violence, in which both parties are allowed to cross-examine the other through a surrogate. It also restricts the cases colleges need to look into, including many of those that occur off campus. And it narrows the definition of sexual harassment, matching the one used by the U.S. Supreme Court in Title IX cases.
Share
