UW chancellor defends policies on sexual assault

As the nation’s secretary of education announced plans to change the way colleges and universities handle allegations of sexual violence on campus, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank on Thursday defended practices on her campus.

The federal government currently is investigating 256 postsecondary schools for issues related to sexual assaults, including four at UW-Madison, two at UW-Whitewater, one at UW-Milwaukee, two at Medical College of Wisconsin and one at St. Norbert College.

“No student on our campus should have to deal with sexual assault,” the UW-Madison chancellor said in a statement. “We have worked hard to develop a set of policies and practices that serve our students well and we do not plan to change them.”

Blank said UW-Madison will continue to use “prompt, fair, and impartial” practices and ensure both parties have equal participation rights throughout any investigation/disciplinary process; provide evidencebased education and prevention programs to all students; and make reporting mechanisms and support services as effective and accessible as possible for survivors.

Declaring “the era of ‘rule by letter’ is over,” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Thursday that Obama administration rules established in 2011 to guide school investigations of sexual assault complaints are confusing, have failed to protect students and do a “disservice to everyone involved.”

Her comments signaled the possibility of a major shift in the way colleges enforce Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination in education based on gender, which is enforced by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

DeVos did not say how the rules may change. Instead, she said she would seek feedback from the public and universities and develop new rules.

The Obama administration “weaponized” the Office for Civil Rights to work against schools and students, DeVos said in a speech at George Mason University.

The Obama-era rules told schools they must investigate and resolve all complaints of sexual assault, even if there is a separate criminal case. They also established what has become a polarizing standard of evidence used to judge cases.

Unlike criminal courts, where guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, colleges were told to judge students based on whether it’s “more likely than not” they committed the offense.