Month: August 2017

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PR: The Constitution Doesn’t Stop at the Campus Gates

Contact: Christopher Perry

Telephone: 301-801-0608

Email: cperry@saveservices.org

The Constitution Doesn’t Stop at the Campus Gates: SAVE Commends Lawmakers for Advancing Free Speech, Due Process Bills

WASHINGTON / July 17, 2017 – Responding to concerns about unconstitutional practices on college campuses, lawmakers in 16 states have introduced 18 bills designed to restore free speech or due process protections to college students. The states are California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

SAVE commends the legislators who have championed these bills, and notes the favorable bipartisan support these bills are enjoying.

Among the 18 bills, four already have been signed into law by the governors of Colorado, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. In North Carolina and Rhode Island, bills have passed both chambers and await the governors’ approval.

The free speech bills address a range of First Amendment concerns such campus speech codes, so-called “free speech” zones, dis-invitations of controversial speakers, and other infringements on the expressive rights of students and faculty.

Notable is Tennessee’s Campus Free Speech Protection Act, Senate Bill 723. Signed into law by Gov. Bill Haslam on May 9, the Act provides some of the country’s strongest protections for student and faculty speech on public college campuses.

The due process bills were designed to ensure the availability of active counsel and other due process protections for students involved in campus disciplinary proceedings. Legislators in Georgia, North Carolina, and Utah championed the due process bills in these three states, but those bills did not reach the governors’ desks.

SAVE has drafted a model sexual assault bill titled the Campus Equality, Fairness, and Transparency Act that is designed to encourage law enforcement involvement in campus felony-level crimes, and establishes a range of due process protections: http://www.saveservices.org/sexual-assault/cefta/

SAVE has developed a chart that displays all 18 bill numbers, their URL links, bill summaries, and current legislative status. The chart is available here: http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/State-FS-and-DP-Legislative-Analysis.pdf

SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments) is working to restore free speech and due process on college campuses: www.saveservices.org

Categories
Campus DED Sexual Assault Directive Due Process Office for Civil Rights Press Release

PR: Universities Face Major Changes in Title IX Landscape as Administrators Prepare for Fall Semester

Contact: Christopher Perry

Telephone: 301-801-0608

Email: cperry@saveservices.org

Universities Face Major Changes in Title IX Landscape as Administrators Prepare for Fall Semester

WASHINGTON / August 14, 2017 – Last week the University of Georgia Board of Regents approved wide-ranging changes in the sexual assault policies at the campuses it oversees. The revisions were designed to strengthen oversight, assure a consistent process for all cases, and place more emphasis on prevention and education (1).  The changes were made in response to developments in the Title IX landscape that are occurring across the nation.

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE) has identified eight shifts in the policy landscape that have emerged in the past 12 months. SAVE invites administrators to review these developments and make necessary updates to campus policies:

  1. State legislation. Responding to reports of unconstitutional practices on campuses, state lawmakers have introduced 22 bills designed to restore free speech or due process protections to college students. To date, eight of these bills have been passed into law in Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia (2).

 

  1. Liability risks. The number of lawsuits by accused students is on the rise. Since 2013, judges have issued rulings on 55 lawsuits filed against universities that were at least partly favorable to the accused student (3). Last week it was reported that an average of $187,000 is spent per case filed by accused students (4).

 

  1. “Victim-centered” investigations. Investigations based on the “always believe the victim” model are often implicated in lawsuits by accused students against universities. An analysis of these lawsuits concluded that “victim-centered” approaches “are inconsistent with the most basic notions of fairness, repudiate the presumption of innocence, and are likely to lead to wrongful determinations of guilt.” (5)

 

  1. OCR complaints by identified victims. Following issuance of the Dear Colleague Letter in 2011, thousands of identified victims have filed complaints with the Office for Civil Rights alleging mistreatment by campus officials. Some identified victims claimed their experience with the campus adjudication process was more traumatic than the original assault (6).

 

  1. Administrator concerns. John McCardell, Vice Chancellor of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, recently charged the OCR’s Dear Colleague Letter has “imposed on entities ill-trained or equipped for the task, a quasi-judicial role, with the implication that ‘justice,’ however defined, can be satisfactorily rendered through processes that cannot possibly replicate a genuine legal proceeding.” (7) An Inside Higher Ed article on the annual meeting of the National Association of College and University Attorneys reported, “Many college and university officials felt overregulated by the Obama administration, and have expressed interest in seeing that oversight eased.” (8)

 

  1. OCR investigations. In June, the Office for Civil Rights announced that it will narrow its investigational approach to focus only on the specific allegations of the complaint, not on cases that have been previously resolved by the college (9).

 

  1. Expert reports. Five independent reports have recently called for an overhaul of the campus adjudication system (10):
  1. American College of Trial Lawyers: Position Statement Regarding Campus Sexual Assault Investigations
  2. SAVE: Six-Year Experiment in Campus Jurisprudence Fails to Make the Grade
  3. NCHERM Group: Due Process and the Sex Police
  4. American Bar Association Task Force for Promoting Fairness in Campus Sexual Misconduct Cases
  5. Heritage Foundation: Campus Sexual Assault: Understanding the Problem and How to Fix It

 

  1. Editorial criticisms. Thus far in 2017, over 300 editorials have been published at various newspapers and internet sites criticizing the recurring due process violations on campuses (11).

Citations:

  1. http://www.saveservices.org/2017/08/university-of-georgia-vice-chancellor-responds-to-significant-misinformation-contained-in-inside-higher-ed-article/
  2. http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/State-FP-and-DP-Legislative-Analysis2.pdf
  3. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CsFhy86oxh26SgTkTq9GV_BBrv5NAA5z9cv178Fjk3o/edit#gid=0
  4. http://www.chronicle.com/article/Lawsuits-From-Students-Accused/240905
  5. http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/Victim-Centered-Investigations-and-Liability-Risk.pdf
  6. http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/Six-Year-Experiment-Fails-to-Make-the-Grade.pdf
  7. http://www.saveservices.org/wp-content/uploads/Six-Year-Experiment-Fails-to-Make-the-Grade.pdf
  8. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/28/trump-administration-civil-rights-officials-promise-colleges-fairer-regulatory
  9. https://www.propublica.org/documents/item/3863019-doc00742420170609111824.html
  10. http://www.saveservices.org/sexual-assault/ocr/
  11. http://www.saveservices.org/sexual-assault/editorials/2017/

SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments) is working to restore free speech and due process on college campuses: www.saveservices.org

Categories
Campus Sexual Assault

PR: Dept. of Education Invites Recommendations on Regulatory Reform:

Contact: Christopher Perry

Telephone: 301-801-0608

Email: cperry@saveservices.org

U.S. Dept. of Education Invites Recommendations on Regulatory Reform:

SAVE Urges Persons to Comment on Unlawful Sexual Violence Directives

WASHINGTON / August 2, 2017 – The Department of Education has issued an invitation to persons to submit comments on federal regulations that are deemed to be unnecessary or ineffective, or impose costs that exceed the benefits. The solicitation was issued pursuant to Executive Order 13777, Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda.

SAVE invites state lawmakers and others to submit comments urging the Department of Education to rescind its 2011 Dear Colleague Letter on Sexual Violence — https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201104.html — and its subsequent Questions and Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence — https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/qa-201404-title-ix.pdf .

Even though the Letter and Q and A policy documents were never submitted for public review and comment, this unlawful federal policy has been enforced by the federal government as binding law, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

The 2011 Dear Colleague Letter has been sharply criticized by law professors, civil liberties organizations, and others for trivializing the problem of campus rape, shortchanging sexual assault victims, and curtailing due process rights of the accused: http://www.saveservices.org/sexual-assault/ocr/

In recent months, five organizations have issued independent reports calling for an overhaul of the campus adjudication system: http://www.saveservices.org/sexual-assault/ocr/

  1. SAVE: Six-Year Experiment in Campus Jurisprudence Fails to Make the Grade
  2. American College of Trial Lawyers: Position Statement Regarding Campus Sexual Assault Investigations
  3. NCHERM Group: Due Process and the Sex Police
  4. American Bar Association Task Force for Promoting Fairness in Campus Sexual Misconduct Cases
  5. Heritage Foundation: Campus Sexual Assault: Understanding the Problem and How to Fix It

The deadline for submission of comments is August 21, 2017. To submit a comment, go to: https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=ED-2017-OS-0074-0001  Additional information is available here: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=ED-2017-OS-0074-0001

SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments) is working to restore free speech and due process on college campuses: www.saveservices.org