Representatives for 26 organizations, mostly conservative groups, called on the Department of Education‘s assistant secretary for civil rights to drop the agency’s planned revision of regulations governing how schools handle sexual assault cases, claiming it is unnecessary.
The planned regulation would revise a current Trump-era Title IX regulation that streamlined the process for schools to handle sexual assault cases after concerns were raised that previous guidelines from the Obama administration had led to the erosion of due process. The current regulations were spearheaded by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and garnered substantial opposition from sexual assault awareness groups when enacted in 2020.
The Biden administration announced last year that it was working to revise the regulations. In December, Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon said the department would announce a new rule in April 2022. Lahmon previously served in the same position in the Obama administration.
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The Monday letter was signed by the leaders of numerous organizations, including the Defense of Freedom Institute’s Jim Blew, who served as assistant secretary of planning, evaluation, and policy development under DeVos.
Other signatories included Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, Executive Director of Speech First Cherise Trump, former acting Secretary of Homeland Security and America First Policy Institute Executive Director Chad Wolf, Executive Director of the American Civil Rights Project Dan Morenoff, and Nicole Neily of the parent activist organization Parents Defending Education.
“It is critical that the Department preserve the 2020 Rule,” the letter said. “There is simply no need for regulatory action at this time.”
The letter said the Biden administration had not “pointed to any plausible reason why it might be necessary to amend the 2020 Rule” and noted that the current regulation’s process for the adjudication of campus sexual assault cases had survived multiple legal challenges.
Among changes made by the 2020 rule was requiring that schools ensure an involved party’s right to an adviser and mandating that a school hold a live hearing with the opportunity for each advocate to cross-examine the individuals involved.
The rule was praised by due process advocates, who said the regulation was a needed revision of previous department guidelines that they said provided incentives for schools to punish accused parties without affording them due process.
Meanwhile, sexual assault victim advocacy groups opposed the rule, claiming it would traumatize victims due to the cross-examination requirement.
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“Hastily dispatching this carefully balanced process will only serve to devalue the core American principles of due process of law, freedom of speech and religion, academic freedom, and equal treatment on the basis of sex that lie at the heart of the 2020 Rule,” the signatories wrote.
