It hasn’t been the best month for the social justice monsters who hijacked the #MeToo movement. It’s even worse for them now that Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is involved.
The department on Wednesday rolled out its new rule addressing sexual discrimination claims on college campuses, which got out of control thanks to guidance under the Obama administration.
In case after case, male students have been accused of sexual misconduct — the claims sometimes come as much as a year after the fact — and they’re left with almost no recourse or way to defend themselves that even remotely resembles justice.
The new rule for public universities attempts to change that.
As it is now, there really is no formal set of regulations regarding how schools adjudicate allegations of sexual harassment, a term which until now wasn’t even formally defined by the Department of Education.
As described in my new book, Privileged Victims, the definition up until now was something like, “I was either touched or addressed in a way I didn’t like, or I may have come to regret something I wasn’t so sure I wanted to do.” The new definition is any conduct that constitutes a quid pro quo, a sex crime (as an assault), or “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” according to senior department officials who briefed journalists on a call Wednesday.
It’s not perfect, because “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” will have to be determined by a school administrator, and who knows how any individual will come down on that one, but it’s progress. The rule requires that “unwelcome conduct” be defined as “severe,” “pervasive,” and “objectively offensive,” which are at least appropriate standards, if, again, murky.
More importantly, though, the new rule lays out the process that schools will have to follow when a sexual harassment complaint is filed. That will include the right of both the accuser and the accused to view and hear all evidence and witnesses throughout the investigation and hearing. This has not always been so, leaving a lot of young men in the dark about the exact nature of the allegations they face.
Accusers aren’t robbed of their own rights just because the accused have finally been given some. The new rule is generous in providing the opportunity to file complaints, both formally and informally, and in requiring that schools offer supportive counseling for options to move forward.
But the problem as it stands isn’t that accusers aren’t offered channels to make their case. It’s that the accused is offered so few opportunities to defend against allegations, including when it comes to asking that administrators ensure the presumption of innocence until evidence proves otherwise.
The new rule makes clear that the powers of school administrators who oversee the adjudication cannot be invested in one person. The coordinators, investigators, and ultimate decision-makers cannot be the same people, and they’ll have to undergo training on fairness and bias conflict.
“Believe all women” has never been a fair standard. That it’s being removed from college campuses is a good thing.
