March 20, 5:45 p.m. Colleges and universities have their hands full dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, as they transition to online classes, close campuses and worrying about the health and housing of their students. But many are worried they may soon have to implement a controversial rule by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that will change how institutions handle allegations of sexual assault and harassment, including a requirement the accused be able to cross-examine their accusers in a live hearing.

DeVos has been rumored to be issuing the rule soon. Though the Office of Management and Budget, which reviews proposed new rules, has meetings with stakeholders scheduled through April 6, the office could cancel them and green-light a rule at any time.

The rule would involve changing policies, including faculty agreements, said Brett A. Sokolow,  president of the Association of Title IX Administrators.

“Issuing Title IX regulations in the midst of coronavirus response would be a huge distraction for schools and colleges, which need to be focused right now on transitioning essential services to online delivery,” he said. While institutions are usually given 30 to 90 days to comply with a new rule, he said they should be given at least a year.

More than 10 higher educations asked this week in a memo for federal lawmakers to give DeVos “the authority to waive compliance with significant and/or costly new regulatory requirements that may be introduced in this period, as institutions’ ability to come into compliance will necessitate a substantial outlay of resources that are better allocated to other purposes at this time.”

Craig Lindwarm, vice president for government affairs at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, said his group is worried about having to comply with a pending rule expanding the reporting requirements for institutions for foreign gifts and contracts.

“Now is not the time to impose substantial new regulatory burdens on institutions, and significant challenges in implementation, when campuses are closing and responding to the emergency conditions they’re facing,” he said.

“We have significant concerns that institutions won’t have the bandwidth or the resources to implement these regulations,” said Matt Owens, the Association of American Universities’ executive vice president and vice president for federal relations.

“This is not the time,” said Elizabeth Tang, education and workplace justice counsel at the National Women’s Law Center. “Students and families are struggling to provide for their basic needs, and schools scrambling to provide online resources. It would be absolutely inappropriate to issue a new rule in the midst of all this.”

The law center has said it would file a suit to block the rule if the final version is similar to the initial version DeVos proposed. Many of the Trump administration’s rules have been blocked in court, she said. But Sokolow, writing in Inside Higher Ed, warned institutions will have to respond to a new rule even if it is being challenged in court.

“It’s unlikely that a federal judge will enjoin the regulations fully, and if there is a partial injunction, colleges and universities will still need to comply with those elements of the regulations that are not enjoined,” he wrote in a Jan. 15 opinion piece on the potential impact of the new rule on institutions.

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/03/23/live-updates-latest-news-coronavirus-and-higher-education