The Center for Equal Opportunity is pleased to join other civil liberties and civil rights organizations in welcoming the effective date today of the new federal Department of Education rules for universities and K-12 schools to use in investigating and adjudicating accusations of student- on-student sexual harassment and assault.
Adopted in May after a careful process that took more than two years and considered more than 124,000 comments on the proposed rules, the regulations will require educational institutions to act impartially and without bias or prejudgment and to use procedures including live hearings, cross-examination of all witnesses, and other procedures to seek fair and accurate outcomes for male as well as female students. Spearheaded by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, they are designed to restore the presumption of innocence, which most universities have previously set aside under pressure from the Obama Administration by finding against many accused students even when the evidence of innocence has been strong.
CEO chair Linda Chavez applauded the Department of Education’s effort to bring greater transparency and due process to university proceedings. “Obama Administration guidance on sexual harassment led to broad-scale abuses of civil liberties and civil rights. These new regulations finally address the issue in a careful and measured way that protects the rights of both victims and the accused,” she said. CEO is a non-partisan, non-profit research and policy organization founded in 1995.
The Center for Equal Opportunity is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization that studies issues relating to race and ethnicity nationwide.
Related posts:
TESTIMONY OF ROGER CLEGG, PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL, CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY BEFORE THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS REGARDING THE PROPOSED EMPLOYMENT NON-DISCRIMINATION ACT
Bad Old Regulations
Getting serious about racial discriminationPoliticized external review panels as unguided “diversity” missiles: California university administrators remain ultra-slow learners