Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Tufts to Department of Education: “Finding Has No Basis in Law”
Be sure to read FIRE Vice President Robert Shibley’s excellent piece today at WGBH.com on the ongoing battle over how colleges and universities handle allegations of sexual harassment and assault. As I reported yesterday, the White House unveiled its first official task force report (PDF), to both acclaim and criticism. Overshadowed by the White House announcement, however, is the news that Tufts University is pushing back against its treatment by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. As Shibley explains:
One of the first questions many people ask on this issue is, “Why are colleges holding rape trials anyway?” Good question. They do so because they are required to under Title IX, the 1972 federal law banning sex discrimination in educational programs. But don’t bother looking at the text of Title IX, which makes no mention of rape hearings at all. The requirement instead comes from mountains of federal regulations and piecemeal statutes that hold colleges to standards that are nearly impossible to meet or even comprehend.
Tufts is currently finding this out the hard way. The university came to a voluntary agreement with the Boston office of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR, the agency tasked with enforcing the statute) on April 17 over how to remedy past Title IX problems. But just days later, the Washington OCR office told Tufts that its new policies also failed to comply with Title IX.
That’s when Tufts did something unprecedented — it withdrew from the voluntary agreement and issued statements loudly condemning OCR’s move. Tufts issued a statement saying that OCR’s new finding “has no basis in law,” while President Anthony Monaco said he was willing to sign a new agreement only on the condition that OCR “is very clear about what we have to improve.”
Unfortunately for Monaco, that may prove impossible. The government’s latest effort to “clarify” the issue consisted of the task force’s 23-page report, a new website at NotAlone.gov, a 37-page template for “campus climate surveys,” a sexual misconduct policy checklist, a sample confidentiality policy, and, to top it off, a 53-page guidance document from OCR that is supposed to help explain how to apply the 47-page “blueprint” for sexual misconduct procedures promulgated last year as well as the 19-page “Dear Colleague” letter about the subject from 2011. And more documents are promised soon.
While it’s nearly impossible to follow all of these vague, confusing, and sometimes conflicting regulations, the parts that are clear are in many cases very alarming to civil liberties advocates or, indeed, anyone who believes in the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.”
Published in General
Frankly, I find this hilarious… Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people. Left, meet Left. Enjoy each other.
“…the principle of “innocent until proven guilty.””
Life will be much simpler when the Progressives finish getting rid of that antiquated notion.
I would not quite call that a victory however even a small act of resistance to this insanity is more than I expect from any academic institution. Campus “rape trials”, insane.
The world of Franz Kafka is certainly alive and well in academia.
Given new studies on the sexual assault of men, we should be teaching men to use the system, if only to collapse it. Its happened on other campuses, men start filing complaints and they dismantle the whole thing.
My problem with all of the sexual assault discussion is avoiding risks is never discussed. Locally we had a young girl disappear who was last seen walking home by herself, so drunk she forgot her shoes and cell phone. Another was raped after going to bed to sleep with a man she just met a few hours earlier. In most sexual assault cases I read about, the victim put themselves in risky situations. These types of risky behaviors drastically increase the odds of assault. I agree that doesn’t excuse the assaults, but avoiding risks has to be a part of the discussion. In the White Report, the section on “Prevention” doesn’t say one thing about risky behavior.
Yeah, Tuck. Laugh it up. I’m sure the man erroneously, if not falsely, accused and “convicted” is laughing with you. I’m sure the woman, truly raped, but denied justice in all forms but the mere form of such an inquisition is guffawing with you.
Eric Hines
Did you even read the original post? Or my response?
There’s no “man”. This is about how the (Progressive) regulators are tormenting the (Progressive) regulatees…