Campus assault plan in making

DeVos policy gives accused the right to cross-examine accusers.

WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is set to release a sweeping overhaul of how colleges and universities must handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment, giving new rights to the accused, including the ability to cross-examine their accusers, people familiar with the matter said.

The proposal is set for release before Thanksgiving, possibly this week, and replaces less formal guidance issued by the Obama administration in 2011.

The new rules would reduce liability for universities, tighten the definition of sexual harassment, and allow schools to use a higher standard in evaluating claims of sexual harassment and assault.

The rules stem from a 1972 law known as Title IX that bars sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. Most of the attention is on higher education, but the rules also apply to elementary and secondary schools. Once published in the Federal Register, the proposal will be open for public comment before being finalized. The regulation lands amid a national debate over sexual assault, including whether Brett Kavanaugh should have been elevated to the Supreme Court after allegations surfaced that as a teenager he sexually assaulted a girl. He denied the accusation and was confirmed.

Defending Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump declared it “a very scary time for young men in America” who faced the possibility of false claims.

Last year, DeVos rescinded the 2011 Obama guidance, denouncing it as overly prescriptive and lacking due process for the accused. She promised to write a regulation to replace it.

The rules come after years of rising pressure on universities to better respond to allegations of sexual assault and other misconduct. But the new direction has been welcomed by men’s rights groups, who say the Obama guidelines were weighted in favor of the accusers, and by some university administrators who found President Barack’s Obama’s version confusing.

The proposed rule will dodge a related controversial matter regarding the rights of transgender students. The Department of Health and Human Services had urged the Education Department to include a provision defining gender as someone’s biological sex at birth. The DeVos proposal does not include that idea.