Category: Office for Civil Rights

U.S. Department of Education Releases Final Title IX Rule

Post author By saveadmin
Post date May 6, 2020

The U.S. Department of Education today released its Final Rule under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. In addition to posting the unofficial version of the Final Rule, the Department is releasing a Final Rule Fact Sheet, a Final Rule Overview, a document detailing the major provisions of the Final Rule, and a document highlighting changes between the prior Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and the Final Rule. Finally, the Office for Civil Rights has also released a Webinar describing the Final Rule and many of its features.

The Final Rule is clear, predictable, and effective at ensuring schools have the tools they need to address incidents of sexual harassment in their programs and activities. Under the Final Rule, schools know the importance of responding to such incidents appropriately by supporting survivors, as well as by providing a fair, transparent process for investigating and adjudicating sexual harassment matters. The Final Rule will carry the force and effect of law as of August 14, 2020.

OCR Webinar: Title IX Regulations Addressing Sexual Harassment (Length: 01:11:29) 05/06/2020

Campus DED Sexual Assault Directive Due Process Office for Civil Rights Press Release

PR: Universities Face Major Changes in Title IX Landscape as Administrators Prepare for Fall Semester

Post author By saveadmin
Post date August 14, 2017

Contact: Christopher Perry

Telephone: 301-801-0608

Email: cperry@saveservices.org

Universities Face Major Changes in Title IX Landscape as Administrators Prepare for Fall Semester

WASHINGTON / August 14, 2017 – Last week the University of Georgia Board of Regents approved wide-ranging changes in the sexual assault policies at the campuses it oversees. The revisions were designed to strengthen oversight, assure a consistent process for all cases, and place more emphasis on prevention and education (1). The changes were made in response to developments in the Title IX landscape that are occurring across the nation.

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) has identified eight shifts in the policy landscape that have emerged in the past 12 months. SAVE invites administrators to review these developments and make necessary updates to campus policies:

State legislation. Responding to reports of unconstitutional practices on campuses, state lawmakers have introduced 22 bills designed to restore free speech or due process protections to college students. To date, eight of these bills have been passed into law in Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia (2).

Liability risks. The number of lawsuits by accused students is on the rise. Since 2013, judges have issued rulings on 55 lawsuits filed against universities that were at least partly favorable to the accused student (3). Last week it was reported that an average of $187,000 is spent per case filed by accused students (4).

“Victim-centered” investigations. Investigations based on the “always believe the victim” model are often implicated in lawsuits by accused students against universities. An analysis of these lawsuits concluded that “victim-centered” approaches “are inconsistent with the most basic notions of fairness, repudiate the presumption of innocence, and are likely to lead to wrongful determinations of guilt.” (5)

OCR complaints by identified victims. Following issuance of the Dear Colleague Letter in 2011, thousands of identified victims have filed complaints with the Office for Civil Rights alleging mistreatment by campus officials. Some identified victims claimed their experience with the campus adjudication process was more traumatic than the original assault (6).

Administrator concerns. John McCardell, Vice Chancellor of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, recently charged the OCR’s Dear Colleague Letter has “imposed on entities ill-trained or equipped for the task, a quasi-judicial role, with the implication that ‘justice,’ however defined, can be satisfactorily rendered through processes that cannot possibly replicate a genuine legal proceeding.” (7) An Inside Higher Ed article on the annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Attorneys reported, “Many college and university officials felt overregulated by the Obama administration, and have expressed interest in seeing that oversight eased.” (8)

OCR investigations. In June, the Office for Civil Rights announced that it will narrow its investigational approach to focus only on the specific allegations of the complaint, not on cases that have been previously resolved by the college (9).

Expert reports. Five independent reports have recently called for an overhaul of the campus adjudication system (10):

American College of Trial Lawyers: Position Statement Regarding Campus Sexual Assault Investigations
SAVE: Six-Year Experiment in Campus Jurisprudence Fails to Make the Grade
NCHERM Group: Due Process and the Sex Police
American Bar Association Task Force for Promoting Fairness in Campus Sexual Misconduct Cases
Heritage Foundation: Campus Sexual Assault: Understanding the Problem and How to Fix It

Editorial criticisms. Thus far in 2017, over 300 editorials have been published at various newspapers and internet sites criticizing the recurring due process violations on campuses (11).

Citations:

SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments) is working to restore free speech and due process on college campuses: www.saveservices.org

Campus Office for Civil Rights Sexual Assault

PR: Six-Year Experiment in Campus Sex Jurisprudence Found to Be a Failure: Report

Post author By saveadmin
Post date April 4, 2017

Contact: Chris Perry

Telephone: 301-801-0608

Email: cperry@saveservices.org

Six-Year Experiment in Campus Sex Jurisprudence Found to Be a Failure: Report

WASHINGTON / April 4, 2017 – The current system of campus-based adjudications for sexual assault has turned out to be inefficient, unfair, and in some cases harmful, according to a report released today by the non-profit group, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments. The report, “Six-Year Experiment in Campus Jurisprudence Fails to Make the Grade,” is being issued on the six-year anniversary of the controversial “Dear Colleague Letter” on sexual violence, first issued by the Department of Education on April 4, 2011.

The SAVE report identifies numerous cases in which identified victims of sexual assault claimed their colleges failed to appropriately investigate, adjudicate, and sanction their complaints. In one case, a female student charged that campus police at Old Dominion University detained her for eight hours, preventing her from seeking medical attention for the assault. In January, she filed a lawsuit against the university, requesting $75,000 in damages.

Many of these women’s cases have been reported to the federal Office for Civil Rights. The number of complaints has risen dramatically since 2013, leading to a growing backlog of investigations.

Male students have been wrongfully expelled based on false allegations of sexual assault, as well. Among the 51 lawsuits filed by accused students since 2012, a majority of judges have ruled at least partly in favor of the expelled student.

Some of the judges issued strongly worded critiques of the campus “Kangaroo Courts.” In one recent case, a judge ruled that the process at San Diego State University for adjudicating a sexual assault accusation was so biased that it was “enough to shock the Court’s conscience.”

Campus administrators have felt caught between shifting federal requirements and the reality of campus committees that lack the training, expertise, and resources to reliably adjudicate complex rape cases. Some colleges have spent millions of dollars in a sisyphean effort to comply with the federal requirements.

SAVE calls on the Department of Education to repeal its 2011 Dear Colleague Letter, which mandated that campus tribunals investigate and resolve rape allegations. Instead, SAVE urges the enactment of the Campus Equality, Fairness, and Transparency Act. CEFTA encourages the referral of campus rape cases to law enforcement officials and promotes due process: http://www.saveservices.org/sexual-assault/cefta/

The SAVE report can be viewed here: http://www.saveservices.org/reports/

SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments) is working for fair and effective solutions to campus sexual assault: www.saveservices.org

Accountability Campus Civil Rights Department of Justice Discrimination Law Enforcement Office for Civil Rights Press Release Research Training Victims

PR: Expert Panel Calls on Lawmakers to Bring an End to Campus ‘Kangaroo Court’ Investigations

Post author By saveadmin
Post date October 11, 2016

Contact: Gina Lauterio
Telephone: 301-801-0608
Email: glauterio@saveservices.org

Expert Panel Calls on Lawmakers to Bring an End to Campus ‘Kangaroo Court’ Investigations

WASHINGTON / October 11, 2016 – Warning “victim-centered” investigations are “inconsistent with basic notions of fairness and justice,” an Expert Panel has issued a report calling on lawmakers to end such approaches in campus sexual assault cases (1). The Expert Panel was convened in observance of Wrongful Conviction Day on October 4 and addressed the growing problem of “victim-centered” investigations at colleges and in the criminal justice system.

“Victim-centered” methods abandon traditional notions of impartiality and objectivity, and instead call on investigators to presume that “all sexual assault cases are valid unless established otherwise by investigative findings,” as one report enjoins (2). Such recommendations represent a negation of the long-held tenet of the presumption of innocence, and are likely to lead to wrongful determinations of guilt.

One of the expert panelists was Michael Conzachi, a former homicide detective and police academy instructor. Conzachi sharply criticized the University of Texas-Austin document Blueprint for Campus Police, saying its recommendations to remove inconsistent statements and exculpatory information from investigational reports represent a potential violation of laws that bar evidence concealment and tampering.

E. Everett Bartlett, president of the Center for Prosecutor Integrity, reported that many lawsuits by accused students against universities now include allegations of investigational impropriety. He identified nine categories of investigational biases claimed in campus lawsuits such as Overt bias/Predetermination of guilt and Inadequate investigator qualifications.

SAVE has developed a model bill titled the Campus Equality, Fairness, and Transparency Act (CEFTA). The bill mandates the use of “justice-centered” investigations that would require campus investigators to “discharge their duties with objectivity and impartiality” (3).

Campus Office for Civil Rights Sexual Assault

PR: Book Warns of ‘New Totalitarianism’ on Campus, Links Problem to 2011 Federal Mandate

Post author By saveadmin
Post date May 9, 2016

Contact: Gina Lauterio

Email: glauterio@saveservices.org

Book Warns of ‘New Totalitarianism’ on Campus, Links Problem to 2011 Federal Mandate

WASHINGTON / May 9, 2016 – A provocative new book spotlights the dramatic erosion of free speech and due process rights on college campuses, and pins much of the problem on the federal Office for Civil Rights. Rape Culture Hysteria: Fixing the Damage Done to Men and Women calls on lawmakers to take determined measures to restore democratic ideals and constitutional protections to universities.

Written by social commentator Wendy McElroy, Rape Culture Hysteria examines the factual basis of “rape culture” and concludes it is “not a real crisis but a manufactured one.” The book portrays Rolling Stone magazine’s report of an alleged gang-rape at the University of Virginia as emblematic of the hysteria. Even though the magazine account was quickly exposed as a fraud, rape culture proponents continued to insist that university investigators should “always believe the victim.”

Much of the problem can be traced to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which issued a Dear Colleague Letter on campus sexual violence in 2011. The policy required colleges to eliminate many due process protections in their handling of sexual assault allegations. As a result, the “treatment of accused males on campus has worsened dramatically,” McElroy posits.

McElroy charges the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter and other “government policies are instrumental in turning American universities into bankrupt social experiments.” As a result, a new “high-paid, careerist professional caste” of college administrators has been created, she writes.

The book identifies a number of solutions, including reducing the OCR budget, treating sexual violence as a “criminal matter by turning accusations over to the police,” and devolving educational authority to the states.

“Political correctness is the new totalitarianism,” McElroy concludes. More information on the book can be seen here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EENF4HW/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk

SAVE is working for evidence-based, constitutionally sound solutions to campus sexual assault: www.saveservices.org

Campus Office for Civil Rights Press Release Sexual Assault

PR: Lawmakers Double-Down on Campus Due Process Abuses

Post author By saveadmin
Post date March 14, 2016

Contact: Gina Lauterio

Telephone: 301-801-0608

Email: glauterio@saveservices.org

Lawmakers Double-Down on Campus Due Process Abuses

WASHINGTON / March 14, 2016 – In an effort to restore due process rights on campuses, state and federal lawmakers have taken determined steps in recent weeks to press college administrators and a federal oversight agency to uphold constitutionally based rights for students accused of sexual assault.

In the most dramatic development, Georgia Rep. Earl Ehrhart, chairman of the House appropriations committee, disapproved a $47 million funding request for Georgia Tech University over due process concerns for accused students.

Ehrhart then called out the Georgia Tech administrators. “The president and the administration are just clueless when it comes to due process on that campus and protecting all those kids. If I have to talk to another brokenhearted mother about their fine son where any allegation is a conviction and they toss these kids out of school after three and a half years, sometimes just before graduation, it’s just tragic,” Ehrhart charged (1).

At the federal level, criticisms were voiced during the course of two hearings in which Department of Education secretary-designate John King provided testimony.

At an Appropriations Committee hearing this past Thursday, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee repeatedly confronted King with the fact that his department was threatening colleges with loss of federal funding if they did not comply with a 2011 “guidance” document (2).

During a previous hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina voiced concerns that the Department of Education has issued sexual assault directives with “potential negative impact on students and institutions.” She then requested that King provide written answers to nine questions about the department’s policy-making procedures (3).

On March 4, James Lankford of Oklahoma, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, sent a strongly worded letter to the John King. The letter charged, “OCR’s silence on important due process considerations, coupled with the requirement of a lower standard of proof, indisputably tips the playing field against the accused, making the disciplinary process anything but ‘equitable.’” (4)

More information about executive over-reach by the federal Office for Civil Rights can be found on the SAVE website (5).

(1) http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/03/07/powerful-state-lawmaker-calls-for-georgia-tech-presidents-ouster/

(2) http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senator-grills-acting-education-secretary-over-agency-overreach/article/2585472#.VuIfEXFPqD0.facebook

(3) http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gop-congresswoman-questions-ed.-dept.-nominee-on-campus-sexual-assault/article/2584078

(4) https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A56B7CAF8A43C485!16667&authkey=!AA5bfF-DWgQ-dZg&ithint=file%2cpdf

(5) http://www.saveservices.org/sexual-assault/ocr/

SAVE is working for evidence-based, constitutionally sound solutions to campus sexual assault: www.saveservices.org