Betsy DeVos promised to shake things up, and she’s making good on that promise.
As the Education Department secretary, DeVos has been dismantling the Title IX landscape the Obama administration created. Her new Title IX regulations reformed the litigation of sexual assault cases on college campuses and loosened federal guidelines, giving schools some breathing room. But don’t mistake DeVos’s deregulation for weakness. She’s still enforcing Title IX regulations, and she’s doing so efficiently.
Devos told the Detroit News‘ Ingrid Jacques this week that because of Michigan State University’s immense failures regarding Larry Nassar, a doctor who treated and sexually abused dozens of young women, and his repeated abuse of female students and gymnasts on campus, the school would pay a $4.5 million fine and completely overhaul its Title IX procedures.
“It became increasingly clear that any process that MSU had simply was not working, and, more accurately, broken,” DeVos said. “In the case of Michigan State, and what we’ve seen with other similar instances at other colleges and universities, is the framework that was in place wasn’t much of a framework. It wasn’t reliable … I don’t know how you could not have addressed this much earlier on and saved a lot of young women from a lot of pain.”
Over the past year, the Education Department has conducted two separate investigations into the Nassar scandal and where MSU went wrong. Using MSU as a sort of case study, the department has been carefully reviewing and revising its Title IX guidelines, which are set to take effect this fall.
DeVos said she believes her new framework will work on behalf of all students, especially in cases of sexual assault. The accuser will have additional access to help on campus through a Clery compliance officer, a new position MSU agreed to adopt, and the accused will be afforded due process through cross-examination and witnesses.
DeVos’s Title IX reforms will also provide something Obama’s did not: clarity. One of the biggest problems with the Obama administration’s broad, sweeping Title IX reforms was that the government handed them to universities without instruction or supervision. These regulations were wordy and vague, and somehow school officials were supposed to figure out what they meant and then apply them in practical situations. The result was misinformation, confusion, and little to no change. If anything, Obama’s Title IX reforms made things worse.
DeVos will continue to face backlash for allegedly undermining the legal rights and emotional trauma of sexual assault victims, as the Left likes to say. But as with the education reform advocacy that has so poisoned them against her, she is doing the right thing. Young women (and men) deserve better than the disaster that is MSU. Title IX is supposed to prevent sexual harassment and assault just as much as it is supposed to punish those who harass and assault.
We need to make sure another Larry Nassar isn’t possible. Colleges can do better; they just need a push in the right direction.
