DeVos changes rules on campus sexual assaults

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration Friday scrapped Obama-era guidance on investigating campus sexual assault, replacing it with new instructions that allow universities to require higher standards of evidence when handling complaints.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said that Obama’s policy had been unfairly skewed against those accused of assault and had “weaponized” the Education Department to “work against schools and against students.”

Women’s rights groups slammed Friday’s decision.

“It will discourage students from reporting assaults, create uncertainty for schools on how to follow the law, and make campuses less safe,” Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, said. “This misguided directive is a huge step back to a time when sexual assault was a secret that was swept under the rug.”

The guidance released in 2011 and then updated in 2014 instructed universities to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard when assessing and investigating a claim of sexual assault. DeVos’ new interim guidelines let colleges choose between that standard and a “clear and convincing evidence” standard, which is harder to meet.

Those rules will be in place temporarily while the Education Department gathers comments from interest groups and the public and writes new guidance.

“Schools must continue to confront these horrific crimes and behaviors head-on,” DeVos said. “There will be no more sweeping them under the rug. But the process also must be fair and impartial, giving everyone more confidence in its outcomes,” she said.

Andrew Miltenberg, a New York lawyer who represents students accused of sexual assault, said Obama’s standard ignored the presumption of innocence and put the burden on the accused. Miltenberg said the system proposed by DeVos is much more fair.

“Certainly, it’s a much more stringent standard and one that is less open to subjective interpretation,” Miltenberg said.

A student may choose whether to report a claim of assault to police or to have it investigated by a university under a federal provision against sexual discrimination. Many students choose not to turn to law enforcement because many such cases go unprosecuted, as police and the courts require higher standards of evidence.