There is much to admire in the direction that Mrs. DeVos is driving in education. Restoring discipline in public schools, and doing so equitably, is a national priority. Those pleased by the guidance repeal should recognize its place in the Education Department’s wider restoration of fairness in American schools. Mrs. DeVos is wise for recognizing a fundamental due-process right to cross-examine one’s accuser in higher-ed disciplinary hearings, and federal courts are increasingly requiring it in campus sexual-assault cases, which are prone to turn into credibility contests. One such example is Doe v. Baum, a sexual-assault case in which the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in September t

Students attending America’s colleges and universities believe they should receive proper due process if they are accused of breaking campus rules, yet most schools fail to provide them with such fairness. A recent report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) found some alarming statistics about the nation’s top 53 institutions of higher learning, including that nearly three-quarters of them do not presume the innocence of students accused of a range of crimes, such as vandalism, theft, or sexual assault. Some 90% do not guarantee accused students the right to cross-examine their accusers (or vice versa). Further, not one of the schools surveyed by FIRE includes the d

The Department of Education’s new rule on sexual harassment has been challenged as protecting schools but not students. In reality, however, DOE’s proposal brings its sexual harassment rules back into compliance with the Constitution and laws. This should be an example for other administrative agencies that have moved beyond their statutory authority. Before Secretary Betsy DeVos’s initiative, DOE’s rules on sexual harassment had no statutory foundation. The Supreme Court had made clear in a 1999 decision exactly when student-to-student sexual harassment would have to be punished by a school, but DOE ignored this decision and continued to develop rules that went beyond any authority it recei

In condemning regulations that would grant the right of cross-examination (through advocates) to both sides in Title IX tribunals, the Dec. 15 editorial “Don’t retraumatize sexual assault victims” should have directed its criticism not at Education Secretary Betsy DeVos but instead at the due process clause. After all, it’s that section of the Constitution that has guided federal court decisions on this issue. “Due process,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit noted in a sexual assault case from the University of Michigan, “requires cross-examination in circumstances like these because it is ‘the greatest legal engine ever invented’ for uncovering the truth.” As another federal jud

From an early age, it was instilled into me that our criminal justice system should be, (i) recompensing the victims and families who have fallen afoul to criminal behaviour, (ii) negating the risk of criminal offences happening in the future. The overarching theme had always been ‘protecting the innocent’. Later in life, I find myself asking, has the criminal justice system lived up to my expectations? Perhaps, you may ask yourself the same thing? There was only one career path that sparked any enthusiasm in me during my school years. I was destined to become a lawyer. After all, what could possibly be better than becoming an adherent to this dignified and distinguished system that I had co

Colleges and universities across the country are failing to afford their students due process and fundamental fairness in their disciplinary proceedings. These institutions investigate and punish offenses ranging from vandalism and housing violations to felonious acts of sexual assault, handling many cases that are arguably better left to courts and law enforcement. But their willingness to administer what is effectively a shadow justice system has not been accompanied by a willingness to provide even the most basic procedural protections necessary to fairly adjudicate accusations of serious wrongdoing. In November 2018, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights proposed new fede

Among the top-ranked universities in the country, only about half require impartial fact-finders in sexual misconduct adjudication—and three-quarters make no guarantees that accused students will be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Those findings are included in a timely report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) that surveyed U.S. News & World Report's top 53 universities' due process protections for students involved in disputes relating to Title IX, the federal statute that governs campus sexual misconduct. According to FIRE, just 30 percent of the schools guaranteed accused students a hearing, and only 10 percent mandated some form of cross-examination. As

Throughout high school, Alexander Sanchez was severely depressed. He thought about suicide, and he didn’t know how to explain what was wrong or ask for help. Instead, Sanchez said that whenever he wasn’t in school, he would lie in bed all day, “not eating, not being happy, being almost not there.” It wasn’t until Sanchez, who grew up in College Station, Texas, got to college that a friend convinced him to see a psychologist, who diagnosed him with depression. In hindsight, Sanchez said he did not reach out for help sooner because he believed that men should be self-reliant— an idea he believes he picked up from Tom Cruise and other macho characters on TV and in movies. “I think I had really

On Nov. 16, controversial U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued new Title IX rules on how schools receiving federal funds are to handle accusations of sexual misconduct. Title IX is the 1972 regulation that prohibits gender discrimination in education. Its definition of sexual harassment had expanded dramatically over the years while due process for those accused had shrunk. DeVos's revision returns to due process. A furor greeted its release. The changes do not need congressional approval - only a 60-day public-comment period, ending January 28. So in #MeToo fashion, opponents have used social media to pit an accuser's "right" to be believed against an accused's right to due process.

In October, Republican senators were the champions of due process. They argued that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh must be presumed innocent in the face of the uncorroborated sex-crime accusations that Democrats had rushed to endorse. Forty-nine Republicans (and one Democrat) then confirmed his nomination to the Supreme Court. “In evaluating any given claim of misconduct, we will be ill served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness, tempting though it may be,” said Maine’s Susan Collins on the Senate floor in the decisive speech of the confirmation process. “It is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy.” Senate majority leade

Same investigator from good-grades-equals-rapist case Was it blood from nonconsensual anal sex or red paint from a party where “students splattered paint on each other”? The University of Southern California was not interested enough in definitively answering that question to even ask a rape accuser to turn over her clothes or medical records. A California appeals court ordered a trial judge to set aside the expulsion of “John Doe” because the accused student was denied a fair Title IX proceeding by the private university. In its ruling Tuesday, the appeals court said USC’s Title IX investigator should have interviewed “three central witnesses” whose testimony was marked by “inconsistencies”

Does a university have the responsibility — or even the right — to investigate a claim that one of its students raped someone hundreds of miles away? The question is central to a case filed in federal court by a Harvard University student who argues the school is overstepping its authority by investigating him for a rape allegation lodged by a nonstudent in a city where police declined to prosecute. Saying he faces “a grave risk of being incorrectly branded a rapist,” the unnamed male Harvard student argues in the suit that the school has no jurisdiction and he wants the investigation halted. The lawsuit was filed Nov. 28, less than two weeks after the Trump administration proposed revising

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos addresses graduates May 5 at Ave Maria University. (Instagram.com/avemariauniv/) Changes made during the Obama administration to Title IX guidelines have triggered a flood of lawsuits asserting the new rules have resulted in unfair treatment of those accused of campus sexual misconduct — including a lawsuit against The Catholic University of America. In response, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently proposed new rules intended to remedy the perceived shortcomings of the Obama-era guidelines, including the concern that they have improperly undermined the rights of those who might have been falsely accused of sexual assault and harassment. Both religious and

‘He could not guarantee that they would not be leaked’ If Harvard is looking to throw an administrator under the bus in the wake of federal and state lawsuits against its sanctions on single-sex clubs, Rakesh Khurana seems like a good candidate. The dean of Harvard College invited representatives of all-male clubs to a meeting under false pretenses a year before the sanctions were proposed, according to the federal lawsuit, The Boston Globe reports. The May 2015 meeting was supposed to cover “the latest school policies on alcohol and sexual assault,” but Khurana instead threatened to blackmail the clubs if they didn’t go coed: At that meeting, according to the suit, Khurana waved a sheet of

Democrats are melting down over the Department of Education’s proposed Title IX reforms, and you’d think Secretary Betsy DeVos had declared open season on college women. But the secretary’s ideas won implicit support last week when another court rebuked university administrators for violating the due-process rights of someone accused of sexual misconduct. Smock v. Regents of the University of Michigan involves a professor who has taught courses on gender, sexuality and family for more than 20 years. Pamela Smock’s woes began in April 2016 when she questioned whether a Ph.D. student had committed plagiarism. That student and two fellow grad students then accused Ms. Smock of sexual harassment