Education Secretary Betsy DeVos spent three years fielding comments and concerns about the Trump administration’s attempt to overhaul the Obama-era “Dear Colleague” guidance for Title IX, and a crucial modification from her initial proposal goes to show it.
Sexual assault victim advocates were rightly concerned by one of the most controversial stipulations from DeVos’s initially proposed Title IX guidelines, namely that federally mandated sexual assault and harassment investigations would be restricted to an “education program or activity” of the accused. As originally written, this would mean that if an assault occurred off-campus, where 9 out of 10 college students live, schools would have no obligation to investigate it.
But the Department of Education listened to concerns and modified that stipulation as follows:
This means that if one student rapes another at a fraternity house, even if the university does not own it, so long as the university recognizes it officially, it must investigate the allegation under the purview of Title IX.
When DeVos initially released her guidelines, the “education program or activity” seemed like the most problematic edit of the Obama administration guidelines. Kudos to the department for a sensible and thoughtful modification.
