Category: Office for Civil Rights

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Public University Stops Banning Males From Federally Funded Program to Resolve Federal Investigation

Post author By saveadmin
Post date October 8, 2020

Allowed to avoid admitting guilt for violating Title IX

The University of Central Oklahoma received nearly $831,000 in federal taxpayer dollars to run a computer and STEM camp for high schoolers that violated Title IX.

Following a complaint by University of Michigan-Flint economist Mark Perry, whose side gig is challenging educational programs that exclude disfavored groups (usually males and whites), the program is nominally accepting all students, not just girls.

Also a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Perry wrote on his blog Monday that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights informed him of the resolution at UCO.

By his count, 27 of his 231 complaints have been resolved “in my favor,” with more than 80 still under investigation by OCR. He expects all of them to end in his favor too, “given the clarity” of Title IX “and the clear violations” by colleges.

Originally described as a “Computer Forensics Program & an Education-Career Pathway for Girls,” according to its National Science Foundation grant page, the program repeatedly emphasized that it was only for girls. Perry said the university’s website for the program just recently removed application language that explicitly said the program is “unavailable for male students.”

An image of the original page with the word “Girls” in the title and description is still available from its website, though the application page that explicitly excludes male students does not appear to be cached anywhere The College Fix could find. The illegal program was funded by corporate sponsors and partners including Apple, IBM, Inciter, CGI and Stelar.

Perry said he learned about the program through the parents of a high school boy who wanted to apply but saw the no-males language on the application page. The economist filed the complaint under his own name – as he always does – to protect their anonymity.

The taxpayer-funded university has removed all sex-specific language from the content of the website, though it still only shows girls and its domain is still ComputerAcademyforGirls.com. Perry said OCR told him the federal office is “still in the monitoring stage” for the university to comply with the “Voluntary Resolution Agreement,” which requires UCO to “eliminate any suggestion” that the program is “for a single sex.”

Perry noted that UCO President Patti Neuhold-Ravikumar herself signed the agreement, which “seems to be an indication of the seriousness of violating federal civil rights laws.” (He posted images of the two-page print agreement, dated Sept. 30.)

As with other OCR resolutions, however, UCO was allowed to avoid admitting guilt and it won’t face any financial penalties, he continued:

Perhaps that’s why so many universities knowingly violate Title IX — the worst-case scenario is that they get caught like UCO, make the necessary corrections to their Title IX violations so that they don’t jeopardize their federal funding, but without any serious consequences and without actually even having to admit to the violation!??

The economist also denounced the National Science Foundation for funding “hundreds” of programs that exclude males at colleges, including the College of William and Mary and University of Wisconsin System:

And most of the time, hundreds of violations of Title IX like UCO’s go undetected and unreported, often because those who are aware of the violations are unwilling to complain or report the violation, out of fear of retaliation, to the university’s Title IX office or the Office for Civil Rights.

Perry said OCR has notified him of five more investigations opened into his complaints in the past month, against the University of Virginia, Florida Gulf Coast University, University of South Alabama, Youngstown State University and University of Maryland. All are offering programs reserved for females.

UVA’s program is one of “several dozen” programs for “female leadership/entrepreneurship/negotiation” that illegally exclude men, he said, naming 20 other colleges with such programs against which he has filed complaints.

Source: https://www.thecollegefix.com/public-university-stops-banning-males-from-federally-funded-program-to-resolve-federal-investigation/

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg Agreed With Amy Coney Barrett That Campus Kangaroo Courts Were a Problem

Post author By saveadmin
Post date September 25, 2020

Federal appeals court Judge Amy Coney Barrett and the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed Title IX code of conduct trials were flawed.

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

by Jon Miltimore

In 2018, following the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, President Trump tipped his hand about who he’d be inclined to choose if given the opportunity to fill another vacancy on the high court.

That person, the New York Times observed, was Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative law professor whom Trump tapped for a federal appeals court in 2017.

A week ago, it appeared the chances of Trump filling another Court vacancy in his first term were slim. However, the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died September 18 during her 27th year on the high court just six weeks before the presidential election, means Trump will get the opportunity to send another nomination to the Republican-controlled Senate.

Some sources claim Barrett still has the edge to win the nomination, though Cuban-American federal appellate judge Barbara Lagoa is also generating buzz.

As the Brett Kavanaugh nomination and previous hearings have shown, Supreme Court battles can be nasty, even nastier than typical political battles. There’s little reason to expect the filling of Ginsburg’s seat to be any different—even if it wasn’t coming just weeks before a presidential election—so it’s no surprise to see that news media are already dissecting Barrett’s court opinions.

Just 48 hours after Ginsburg’s death, the Washington Post ran an article on Barrett’s opinion in Doe v. Purdue University, a Title IX—the rule prohibiting sex-discrimination in public education —case involving a Purdue student (John Doe) who was suspended by the university after being accused of sexual assault by a former girlfriend (Jane Doe).

According to John Doe, as described by a court summary of the case, the couple met in Purdue’s Navy ROTC program and started dating in the fall of 2015. They soon began a sexual relationship. In December, Jane attempted to take her own life in front of John. He reported the attempt to the school, and the couple ceased dating.

“A few months later, Jane alleged that in November 2015, while they were sleeping together in his room, she awoke to John groping her over her clothes without consent,” the Washington Post reports. “Jane said she objected and that John told her he had penetrated her with his finger while they were sleeping together earlier that month. John denied the allegations and produced friendly texts from Jane after the alleged November incident.”

These are serious charges that demand a serious appraisal of the facts and due process. But like plaintiffs in Title IX cases—some 600 lawsuits have been filed against universities since Barack Obama’s Education Department issued its “Dear Colleague” letter to schools warning them they’d lose federal funding if they didn’t prioritize complaints of sexual assault—John Doe encountered something else.

Court documents show the hearing resembled a show trial, including a false confession, that resulted in a year-long suspension of John Doe that cost him a spot in the ROTC program.

“Among the university’s alleged missteps cited by the court: John Doe received a redacted copy of investigators’ report on his case only moments before his disciplinary hearing. He discovered that the document did not mention that he had reported Jane’s suicide attempt and falsely asserted that he had confessed to Jane’s allegations,” the Post reports. “Jane Doe did not appear before the university panel that reviewed the investigation; instead, a written summary of her allegations was submitted by a campus group that advocates for victims of sexual violence.”

All of this fits the pattern of the kangaroo courts universities established after the Dear Colleague letter. As Reason has spent the last several years documenting, these cases tend to presume individuals guilty until proven innocent, while depriving them of the due process necessary to prove their innocence.

Barrett is hardly alone in her jurisprudence regarding the importance of due process. As the Post concedes, campus kangaroo courts were widely criticized by civil libertarians across the political divide.

“Judges of all stripes around the country have been concerned with fairness in these proceedings,” said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor and retired federal judge appointed by President Clinton.

It was these concerns that prompted US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to issue new rules to Title IX hearings in April that strengthened the rights of those accused of sexual misconduct, including the right to cross-examine accusers and preventing investigators from also serving as case judges. (Former Vice President Joe Biden has said he’d reverse Devos’s ruling if elected president, which prompted some to point out that Biden, who like the current president stands accused of sexual assault, would be guilty under the current standard.)

Few would argue that protecting the rights of sexual assault victims is important, but it’s worth noting that among the critics of the previous standard was Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Post admits the “feminist icon, surprised some victim’s advocates in a 2018 interview with the Atlantic magazine” when she said many of the criticisms of college codes were legitimate.

“The person who is accused has a right to defend herself or himself, and we certainly should not lose sight of that,” Ginsburg said. “There’s been criticism of some college codes of conduct for not giving the accused person a fair opportunity to be heard, and that’s one of the basic tenets of our system, as you know, everyone deserves a fair hearing.”

Ginsburg is correct that due process and a fair hearing for the accused are fundamental principles of the American system. Yet hundreds of individuals who believe they were denied fair hearings and are seeking redress from universities have found the path difficult due to legal technicalities.

Plaintiffs tend to claim their rights were violated in two ways: 1) the unveristiy violated the plaintiff’s right to due process; 2) the school discriminated against the plaintiff on the basis of sex, violating Title IX.

Prior to Purdue vs. Doe, the Post reports, courts often upheld accused student claims of due process violations “but rejected their Title IX arguments on the grounds that the students had failed a complicated series of legal tests first established in 1994.” Essentially, plaintiffs had to prove not just that their due process rights were violated, but that they were violated on the basis of their sex.

Barrett’s ruling, however, was instrumental in lowering the burden of proof plaintiffs had to show.

“It is plausible that [university officials] chose to believe Jane because she is a woman and to disbelieve John because he is a man,” Barrett wrote in her opinion, citing the political pressure the Obama administration had put on schools to address sexual assault.

Barrett’s opinion was adopted by other courts, and it was this reasoning that caused women’s rights groups to criticize the appellate judge.

Emily Martin of the National Women’s Law Center bristled at the idea of “replacing [Ginsburg] with a judge who is eager to use the language of sex discrimination in order to defend the status quo, and to use the statutes that were created to forward gender equality as swords against that very purpose.”

We’ll never know if Ginsburg would have believed it was plausible to assume that sex played a role in the university show trials that allowed hundreds of people accused of sex crimes to be found guilty without due process or a fair hearing.

What we do know is that on the broader issue of campus kangaroo courts, Ginsburg and Barrett found common ground.

“We have a system of justice where people who are accused get due process, so it’s just applying to this field what we have applied generally,” Ginsburg told The Atlantic in 2018.

Indeed. It was for this reason that America’s founders carved out specific protections for the principle, declaring in the Fifth Amendment that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law… .”

Universities have long been able to deny due process to students accused of sexual crimes, because the allegations against them are not criminal charges. This is a grave injustice.

Accusing individuals of heinous sexual misconduct is a serious matter. A verdict of guilt will be carried with students for the rest of their lives and has the potential to impact their career and future earnings, not to mention their reputation. Such matters are far too serious to withhold from the accused fundamental tenets of our system designed to ensure justice and fairness.

Justice Ginsburg and Judge Barrett might have had starkly different constitutional views, but on this basic idea of justice they found common ground.

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

https://fee.org/articles/ruth-bader-ginsburg-agreed-with-amy-coney-barrett-that-campus-kangaroo-courts-were-a-problem/

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Amy Coney Barrett, potential Supreme Court nominee, wrote influential ruling on campus sexual assault

Post author By saveadmin
Post date September 22, 2020

Amy Coney Barrett, a leading contender for the Supreme Court seat held by the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote an influential appellate decision last year that made it easier for students accused of sexual assault to challenge universities’ handling of their cases.

Barrett led a three-woman panel of judges that said Purdue University may have discriminated against a male student accused of sexual assault when it suspended him for a year, a punishment that cost him his spot in the Navy ROTC program.

“It is plausible that [university officials] chose to believe Jane because she is a woman and to disbelieve John because he is a man,” Barrett wrote in the case, in which the accuser was identified as Jane Doe and the accused as John Doe.

On Saturday, President Trump said he would nominate a woman in the next week to fill Ginsburg’s seat. In a call with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Trump mentioned Barrett and Barbara Lagoa, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, according to people familiar with the matter.

In siding with John Doe, Barrett was in line with the majority of rulings in this area of the law since 2011, when former president Barack Obama’s Education Department warned schools that they risked losing federal funding if they did not adequately prioritize sexual assault complaints.

About 600 lawsuits have been filed challenging decisions in campus sexual assault cases since 2011, of which about 30 have gone to federal appeals courts, said K.C. Johnson, a Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center history professor who tracks these cases. The decision Barrett wrote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in John Doe v. Purdue University is the “single most consequential ruling in this area,” he said, because it set a fair, simplified standard that has been adopted by three other circuit courts, covering 22 states, as well as the federal district court in D.C.

“This case was a trendsetter,” said Brett Sokolow, a consultant who advises schools and universities on compliance with Title IX, which bars sex discrimination by institutions receiving federal funding. Sokolow, who also serves as president of ATIXA, an association of Title IX administrators, called the opinion “revolutionary” and said it would make it easier for accused students to bring civil litigation against universities to a jury trial.

The lawsuits brought by male students accused of sexual assault generally argue that universities denied their due process rights, or discriminated against them on the basis of sex in violation of Title IX, or both. In many decisions before the Purdue case, Sokolow said, courts upheld accused students’ due process claims but rejected their Title IX arguments on the grounds that the students had failed a complicated series of legal tests first established in 1994.

By contrast, the 7th Circuit did not bother with those legal tests and upheld John Doe’s Title IX claim using a simple, streamlined analysis: Was it plausible that the university had been biased against him because he was a man? Yes, Barrett and her colleagues decided, allowing John Doe to continue to press his case by sending it back to the trial court.

John and Jane were students in Purdue’s Navy ROTC program when they began dating in the fall of 2015, according to a summary of the case in the court ruling that relied on John Doe’s presentation of the facts. They had consensual sexual intercourse numerous times. In December, Jane attempted suicide in front of John. He reported her suicide attempt to the university, and they stopped dating.

A few months later, Jane alleged that in November 2015, while they were sleeping together in his room, she awoke to John groping her over her clothes without consent. Jane said she objected and that John told her he had penetrated her with his finger while they were sleeping together earlier that month. John denied the allegations and produced friendly texts from Jane after the alleged November incident.

Among the university’s alleged missteps cited by the court: John Doe received a redacted copy of investigators’ report on his case only moments before his disciplinary hearing. He discovered that the document did not mention that he had reported Jane’s suicide attempt and falsely asserted that he had confessed to Jane’s allegations. Jane Doe did not appear before the university panel that reviewed the investigation; instead, a written summary of her allegations was submitted by a campus group that advocates for victims of sexual violence.

That group had posted on its Facebook page a Washington Post column headlined: “Alcohol isn’t the cause of campus sexual assault. Men are.” The university panel did not allow John to present witnesses, including a roommate of his who disputed Jane’s account. And two of the three members of the panel admitted they had not read the investigative report.

“Purdue’s process fell short of what even a high school must provide to a student facing a days-long suspension,” Barrett wrote in a decision released nine months after the case was argued.

The Supreme Court has not ruled on a Title IX campus sexual assault case in the past decade, experts said. But Ginsburg, a feminist icon, surprised some victim’s advocates in a 2018 interview with the Atlantic magazine in which she was asked about due process for those accused of sexual harassment.

“The person who is accused has a right to defend herself or himself, and we certainly should not lose sight of that,” she said. “Recognizing that these are complaints that should be heard. There’s been criticism of some college codes of conduct for not giving the accused person a fair opportunity to be heard, and that’s one of the basic tenets of our system, as you know, everyone deserves a fair hearing.”

Ginsburg added that she thought some of those criticisms of college codes were valid.

Critics of the Obama-era guidance, which was rescinded by the Trump administration in 2017, said it set a standard that made it too easy for school officials to discipline students for alleged sexual misconduct. Advocates for sexual assault victims said the guidance was a necessary step toward addressing colleges’ long-standing neglect of victims’ rights.

In the Purdue opinion, Barrett wrote that John Doe’s allegations of gender discrimination were plausible in part because of the pressure that the Obama administration applied to schools and universities to confront sexual harassment and assault.

“The Department of Education made clear that it took the letter and its enforcement very seriously,” Barrett wrote, referring to the 2011 letter that relayed the Obama administration guidance to universities.

The Obama education department opened two investigations into Purdue in 2016, Barrett noted, so “the pressure on the university to demonstrate compliance was far from abstract.”

Emily Martin, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center, said she is troubled by the suggestion that the Department of Education taking sexual misconduct seriously — and pressuring schools to do the same — could be construed as evidence of bias against men. Praising Ginsburg’s legacy of fighting for women’s rights, Martin bristled at the prospect of “replacing someone like that with a judge who is eager to use the language of sex discrimination in order to defend the status quo, and to use the statutes that were created to forward gender equality as swords against that very purpose.”

Martin said that many of the university’s actions as described by John Doe would not have been permitted under the Obama-era guidance. As is typical in such cases, the court considered the facts as alleged by John Doe in deciding whether to grant the university’s motion to dismiss his lawsuit.

Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge and Harvard Law School professor, said she agreed with Martin’s criticism. But she added that many judges have been concerned about the way universities have handled students accused of sexual assault. “Judges of all stripes around the country have been concerned with fairness in these proceedings,” said Gertner, who was appointed to the bench by former president Clinton.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued new Title IX regulations that expanded the rights of the accused and went into effect last month. The regulations require schools to handle sexual harassment and assault allegations differently than they handle any other kind of student misconduct case, Martin said. The new rules require a live hearing with cross-examination of the accuser, unlike in cases of alleged racial harassment, Martin said, “based on the really toxic idea that women and girls are particularly likely to lie about sexual misconduct.”

Supporters of the DeVos rules say that the stakes are so high in sexual-misconduct cases that cross-examination is appropriate and necessary to ferret out the truth when students’ accounts are at odds.

To win his Title IX claim before a jury, John Doe would still have to prove that he was discriminated against on the basis of his sex. His case is pending in district court. In June, Purdue filed a counterclaim asking the court to declare that Doe’s misconduct violated university policy and that the university was acting within its rights when it suspended him.

“The university is seeking a declaratory judgment that John Doe violated Purdue’s policies based on evidence in the record, which the 7th Circuit was not able to consider for procedural reasons at the time of its ruling,” university spokesman Tim Doty said.

Andrew Miltenberg, a New York lawyer who represents John Doe and has represented many accused students in successful lawsuits against their schools, described Barrett’s decision as the “crescendo” of a gradual movement in the courts toward accepting the idea that gender bias against men can shape universities’ handling of sexual assault complaints.

“There are many judges that have talked about the process or procedures being unfair,” he said. “There haven’t been many judges that have come out and said, ‘Hey, it seems to me that gender could have really played a role here.’ ”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/amy-coney-barrett-potential-supreme-court-nominee-wrote-influential-ruling-on-campus-sexual-assault/2020/09/20/843e964e-fb52-11ea-830c-a160b331ca62_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

DED Sexual Assault Directive Office for Civil Rights Victims

PR: Sexual Assault Survivors Reveal Widespread Mistreatment at the Hands of Campus ‘Kangaroo Courts’

Post author By saveadmin
Post date August 26, 2020

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

Sexual Assault Survivors Reveal Widespread Mistreatment at the Hands of Campus “Kangaroo Courts”

WASHINGTON / August 25, 2020 – Over the past nine years, male and female victims of campus sexual assault have reported numerous instances of mistreatment and neglect by university officials. The persistent problem led survivors to file complaints to the federal Office for Civil Rights. Over the past decade, complaints to the OCR increased over four-fold, from 17,724 (2000-2010) to 80,739 (2011-2020). [1] The problem is reflected in the growing number of lawsuits filed against universities, with 650 claims filed to date. [2]

Both female and male victims of sexual assault have been shortchanged by their universities.

One female student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater charged, “I don’t think anybody should be treated the way that I was. It was worse than the assault, a lot worse. I regret with everything, coming forward and saying anything.” [3]

A male victim at Drexel University reported his sexual assault to campus administrators at least seven times, but the university never acted on his complaint. He stated one university official dismissed his rape claim as “ludicrous.” [4]

Penn State, Michigan State, and the University of Southern California (USC) have been in the news in recent months for gross mistreatment of victims:

At Penn State, the Office for Civil Rights identified several cases in which the university, after receiving a complaint of sexual assault, delayed its investigation for so long that the complainant chose to abandon the process. The OCR report noted, “(T)here are serious inadequacies in how the University treats both complainants and respondents in cases of alleged sexual harassment that need correction in order to bring the University into compliance with Title IX.” [5]
Michigan State is facing a possible U.S. Supreme Court challenge after three former students petitioned the court to review their Title IX case and reverse the lower appellate court decision. The original lawsuit cited lack of adequate response to their reports of sexual assault. [6]
The University of Southern California is facing a federal lawsuit after California Court of Appeal reversed a trial court decision and overturned a male student’s expulsion, ruling that his Title IX proceeding was “unfair.” The student, a former USC football star, is now forging ahead with a seven-count federal lawsuit on the grounds of “breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress, negligence and selective enforcement of Title IX.” [7]

A SAVE analysis documents seven ways by which the new Title IX regulation supports and assists complainants. [8]

Establishes a legally enforceable duty of universities to respond to such cases in a timely manner.
Requires the school to investigate allegations of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and harassment.
Requires the school to offer complainants supportive measures, such as class or dorm reassignments or no-contact orders, even if an investigation is not initiated.
Defines the procedures to properly investigate and adjudicate such complaints.
Promotes victim autonomy by allowing the complainant to participate in dispute resolution or withdraw a complaint, if desired.
Ensures complainants are not required to disclose any confidential medical, psychological, or similar records.
Discourages minor complaints that tend to dilute the availability of resources and harm the credibility of future victims.

Universities now have a legally enforceable duty to respond to victim complaints in a timely and thorough manner and to investigate allegations of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and harassment. No longer should any survivor of sexual assault have to experience mistreatment and neglect from university administrators.

Citations:

[1] https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget20/justifications/z-ocr.pdf

[2] https://www.titleixforall.com

[3] https://medium.com/@sarah4mayor/university-of-wisconsin-whitewater-wrestling-a-lawsuit-1a28beeec1a5

[4] https://casetext.com/case/saravanan-v-drexel-univ

[5] https://www.thefire.org/ocr-penn-state-violated-rights-of-both-complainants-and-respondents-in-title-ix-proceedings/

[6] https://statenews.com/article/2020/07/former-msu-students-file-for-title-ix-lawsuit-review-in-u-s-supreme-court?ct=content_open&cv=cbox_latest

[7] https://www.foxnews.com/us/expelled-usc-football-player-legal-victory-title-ix-case

[8] http://www.saveservices.org/2020/05/analysis-new-title-ix-regulation-will-support-and-assist-complainants-in-multiple-ways/

Department of Education Due Process Office for Civil Rights Title IX

Numerous Groups and Individuals Applaud New Title IX Regulation

Post author By saveadmin
Post date August 17, 2020

INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S FORUM: “IWF applauds the Title IX federal regulations released today by the Department of Education. The new regulations—for the first time—codify the obligation of schools to address claims of sexual misconduct. They also require that schools conduct all sexual misconduct investigations without bias and in a non-discriminatory manner.”

YOUNG AMERICA’S FOUNDATION: “These bold reforms – driven by unprecedented input from the American people – will restore constitutional principles and allow students to be confident in fairness and accountability from their schools.”

FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN EDUCATION: “Advocates for free speech and due process on campus won one of their biggest-ever victories today with the finalization of long-awaited new Department of Education Title IX regulations. The regulations guarantee critical due process protections that Americans recognize as essential to securing justice, but that have for too long been denied to students accused of sexual misconduct on college campuses.”

JEANNIE SUK GERSEN, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: “The major story here is that for the first time, the regulations are really making it clear that there are certain elements to a fair process. It’s not just telling schools to be fair, which they have been told by the Education Department multiple times. These regs are actually laying out some of the elements that the department thinks are essential to making a process fair in the college disciplinary context.”

NINA J. GINSBERG, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYERS: “The restoration of due process on campus is essential…America’s colleges and universities are where millions of young adults are not just learning from textbooks and lectures — they are also becoming civically engaged members of a community, of a social order. We cannot expect young adult students to understand and defend core constitutional principles once they leave campus if some of those core principles that apply in America’s justice system are honored only in the breach by the educational institutions presiding over student misconduct proceedings.”

NADINE STROSSEN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE ACLU: “One of the best things about the DeVos guidelines is that it really goes back to square one of what the purpose of Title IX is.”

JUDGE RAYMOND KETHLEDGE, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT: “Any number of federal constitutional and statutory provisions reflect the proposition that, in this country, we determine guilt or innocence individually—rather than collectively, based on one’s identification with some demographic group. That principle has not always been perfectly realized in our Nation’s history, but as judges it is one that we take an oath to enforce.”

KIMBERLY LAU, JAMES FIGLIOZZI AND BRANDEN LYNN, ATTORNEYS AT WARSHAW BURSTEIN: “Placed in an unenviable position, DOE sought to strike a balance by integrating the bedrock principles of due process found within our legal system while also providing continuous support to complainants… As legal practitioners, we believe the final regulations, while not perfect, represent a step in the right direction for Title IX.”

MICHAEL POWELL, NEW YORK TIMES: “Ms. DeVos’ actions won praise from a surprising audience: an influential group of feminist legal scholars who applauded the administration for repairing what they viewed as unconscionable breaches in the rights of the accused.”

DOUGLAS WILDER, FORMER GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA: “…the Department of Education has taken a major step toward improving one area with a longtime culture of injustice. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently strengthened Title IX protections for the survivors of sexual misconduct on campus, while instituting due process in campus proceedings.”

JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG, U.S. SUPREME COURT: “The person who is accused has a right to defend herself or himself, and we certainly should not lose sight of that…[it’s] one of the basic tenets of our system…everyone deserves a fair hearing.”

STACI SLEIGH-LAYMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES AND THE TITLE IX COORDINATOR AT CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: “These new changes give a lot of credibility and due process and equal kind of attention to the person accused as well as the person coming forward… they put in place a process that seeks to provide due process for both sides.”

BUDDY ULLMAN, FORMER PROFESSOR AT THE OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY: “I am a progressive Democrat and enthusiastic supporter of the new Title IX Rule that was recently issued by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The DeVos Rule provides colleges and universities with a detailed and uniform modus operandi on how they must handle gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual assault disputes. The new regulations emphasize fairness, equitability, due process protections, and extensive supportive measures for all parties, all of which have been.”

R. SHEP MELNICK, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: “Not only was the Education Department’s rulemaking process extraordinarily extensive and its response to comments meticulous, but its final rules return to the legal framework established by the Supreme Court over two decades ago… the new administrative regulations are less radical—and more demanding—than the Education Department’s critics often suggest… the Department of Education deserves credit for going through a transparent, time-consuming, and rigorous rulemaking process and respecting the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Title IX.”

What They’re Saying

Accountability Campus Civil Rights Department of Education Discrimination Due Process False Allegations Investigations Office for Civil Rights Press Release Sex Education Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment Title IX Training Victims Violence

Double Jeopardy: SAVE Calls on College Administrators to Assure Due Process Protections for Black Students in Title IX Proceedings

Post author By saveadmin
Post date July 28, 2020

Contact: Rebecca Stewart
Telephone: 513-479-3335
Email: info@saveservices.org

Double Jeopardy: SAVE Calls on College Administrators to Assure Due Process Protections for Black Students in Title IX Proceedings

WASHINGTON / July 28, 2020 – SAVE recently released a study that shows black male students face a type of “double jeopardy” by virtue of being male and black. (1) Analyses show although black male students are far outnumbered on college campuses, they are four times more likely than white students to file lawsuits alleging their rights were violated in Title IX proceedings (2), and at one university OCR investigated for racial discrimination, black male students were accused of 50% of the sexual violence reported to the university yet they comprised only 4.2% of the student population. (3)

In 2015, Harvard Law Professor Janet Halley raised an alarm to the U.S. Senate HELP committee that, “the rate of complaints and sanctions against male students of color is unreasonably high.” (4) She advised school administrators to, “not only to secure sex equality but also to be on the lookout for racial bias and racially disproportionate impact and for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity – not only against complainants but also against the accused.” (5)

Her powerful words were ignored. Over the past 5 years numerous black males have been caught up in campus Title IX proceedings. Their lawsuits often claim a lack of due process in the procedures.

Grant Neal, a black student athlete, was suspended by Colorado State University – Pueblo for a rape his white partner denied ever happened. (6) Two black males students accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student recently settled a lawsuit against University of Findlay for racial, gender and ethnic discrimination. (7) Nikki Yovino was sentenced to a year in prison for making false rape accusations against two black Sacred Heart University football players whose lives were ruined by her accusations. (8) These are just a few examples.

Wheaton College in suburban Chicago, a major stop along the Underground Railroad, recently dismissed Chaplain Tim Blackmon, its first nonwhite chaplain in its 155-year history. Blackmon claims Wheaton’s Title IX office failed to investigate a previous Title IX complaint against him in a “clear misuse of the Title IX investigative process,” and he was “completely blind-sided by this Title IX investigation.” Blackmon’s attorney believes the professor’s race heavily factored into his firing, and that Wheaton was looking for an excuse to sever its relationship with its first African American chaplain and return to being a predominantly white educational institution. (9)

The impact to black male students and faculty could be even greater than any data or media reports imply since only those who can afford a costly litigation file lawsuits and make the news. More data is needed, but anecdotally black males are disproportionately harmed in campus Title IX proceedings.

SAVE recently spoke with Republican and Democrat offices in the House and Senate regarding this issue. Virtually all staffers agreed members of Congress are concerned about harm to black students and supportive of ways to offer protections to all students, including those of color.

The new Title IX regulation offers necessary due process protections that black students need. By complying with the regulation, college administrators will protect the rights of all students and address the serious problem that black men are accused and punished at unreasonably high rates. At a time when activists on college campuses are clamoring that Black Lives Matter, college administrators should assure they are doing everything they can to help their black students.

Citations:

SAVE is leading the policy movement for fairness and due process on campus: http://www.saveservices.org/

Campus Department of Education Office for Civil Rights Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment Title IX Victims

Supreme Court Asked to Review Title IX ‘Circuit Split’

Post author By saveadmin
Post date July 24, 2020

The petition to the Supreme Court, made by Emily Kollaritsch and other women who say they were raped by the same male student while attending Michigan State, asks the justices to solve a “circuit split” between appellate courts across the country. Several courts disagree on how colleges should be held liable when sexual harassment complainants experience further harm after filing complaints. The petition calls on the justices to decide whether colleges can be held responsible for failing to address students’ “vulnerability” to sexual misconduct, or if preventable sexual misconduct must actually occur for colleges to be found in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded institutions.

The case is centered on Kollaritsch and argues that Michigan State failed to protect her from being further harassed by a male student after the university found him responsible for sexually harassing her in 2011. The university issued a no-contact order and Kollaritsch said the male student broke it, but Michigan State could not prove he had. Kollaritsch also said she suffered panic attacks as a result of seeing the male student on campus, which she said indicated that Michigan State was “deliberately indifferent” to her sexual harassment. She said she suffered further harm by the male students’ presence on campus.

The 2019 opinion issued in the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said Michigan State could not be held liable because Kollaritsch could only prove she experienced mental health challenges from seeing the male student and not “further actionable sexual harassment” by him. The case was sent back to the district court for dismissal.

The Sixth Circuit opinion deepened a split in how different appellate courts interpret a 1999 Supreme Court case that found colleges can be held liable for “deliberate indifference” to sexual misconduct on campus under Title IX. Some circuit courts maintain that if a victimized student is merely vulnerable to harassment, even if it does not actually occur, then the institution is failing to provide an equal educational environment and could be held liable. The Eighth and Sixth Circuits hold that alleged victims must “prove additional, post-notice sexual harassment in order to state a claim for damages under Title IX,” according to Kollaritsch’s petition.

The petition was filed on July 2. On July 23, the court approved an extension requested by Michigan State to move the deadline for when the university’s lawyers must file a response. Michigan State will respond to the petition by Sept. 9, the case’s docket says.

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/07/24/supreme-court-asked-review-title-ix-%E2%80%98circuit-split%E2%80%99

#MeToo Campus Civil Rights Discrimination Due Process False Allegations Free Speech Investigations Office for Civil Rights Sexual Harassment

Black Immigrant Chaplain Claims Christian College Used Bogus Title IX Investigation to Fire Him

Post author By saveadmin
Post date July 20, 2020

‘From the outset … race was very much at issue’

A professor’s race heavily factored into his firing on the grounds of making racially and sexually insensitive comments, according to his attorney.

Wheaton College, known informally as the Harvard of evangelical colleges, publicly announced the dismissal of Chaplain Tim Blackmon earlier this month, more than a month after his firing.

The 50-year-old black immigrant from the Netherlands has since vigorously disputed the allegations against him, telling the Chicago Tribune that “they are a complete misconstrual of the comments” he made.

President Philip Ryken justified the college’s firing of Blackmon by publicly accusing him of several violations Wheaton learned about last fall. He had “repeatedly used an ethnic slur” to refer to an Asian employee and suggested that a female staff member sit on his lap during a training session for sexual harassment, according to Wheaton’s statement.

The black chaplain also circulated a meme to employees about masturbation and “arranged” to have the book “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Kama Sutra” placed on a female staff member’s desk, the college claimed.

Wheaton claimed that Blackmon “admitted to certain allegations, which is patently untrue,” his attorney Andrew Miltenberg told The College Fix in an email. The ex-chaplain “continues to refute” both the allegations and the context Wheaton applied to them.

“From the outset, Chapl[a]in Blackmon’s race was very much at issue,” contrary to Wheaton’s race-neutral portrayal of the allegations, Miltenberg said.

Citing Wheaton’s allegedly poor record with racial and ethnic diversity, “especially with the African American community,” the attorney said that Blackmon has been treated far worse than his white colleagues.

Pressure to conform with the prevailing views of the #MeToo movement and the controversies surrounding Title IX investigations resulted in an overreaction from the college, the attorney added.

Ultimately, Wheaton chose to oust Blackmon so that it could maintain the mantle of being an “ethnically diverse” college all the while “return[ing] to its roots – that being a primarily white educational institution,” Miltenberg alleged. Yet the fired employee and his attorney have not decided whether to take legal action yet.

When asked to specify some of the college’s allegations about Blackmon – including the exact racial slur – beyond its curt statement, Director of Marketing Joseph Moore stated: “Wheaton College is not providing further comment.”

That supposed slur, Blackmon told a blogger last week, stemmed from an “inside joke” about the song “Black and Yellow” by the rapper Wiz Khalifa and its relevance to working in a “predominantly white institution.”

Theological articles he shared were ‘ideologically problematic’ for accuser

Wheaton’s internal statement to its community, which Moore provided and which preceded Blackmon’s response, made clear that the college did not find that he engaged in “sexually immoral relationships or physical sexual misconduct.” Rather, its investigation “revealed conduct inconsistent with Wheaton’s policies and commitments.”

Moore did not not provide The Fix with the specific policies and commitments purportedly breached by Blackmon, however.

“To be clear, I was completely blind-sided by this Title IX investigation,” Blackmon said via his attorney in response to Wheaton’s statement.

“I recently learned this was the second time this individual filed a Title IX against me,” the first one occurring in 2017 after Blackmon had “shared five theological articles that the complainant [accuser] deemed ideologically problematic.” (He doesn’t give a more specific description of the accuser; Wheaton’s language suggests at least two women complained.)

Wheaton’s Title IX office didn’t investigate at the time, “as it was a clear misuse of the Title IX investigative process,” the chaplain continued. But in the most recent complaint, he said that “several of my comments have been taken completely out of their factual and, in some cases, religious context.”

He emphasized that no one accused him of “flirtation, inappropriate relationships, sexual misconduct or any sexual action towards anyone,” and neither the accuser nor “any witness, communicate[d] offense or discomfort.”

While it left out his race when justifying his firing, Wheaton emphasized Blackmon’s race when hiring him five years ago as the first nonwhite chaplain in its 155-year history.

Rodney Sisco, director of the Office of Multicultural Development, told The Wheaton Record: “I think change is change, and change is always difficult. Chaplain Blackmon is going to be seen differently.”

While Sisco was personally excited to have a “person of color leading the chaplain’s office,” he suspected that some community members would be “a little worried, asking, ‘Have we made some sort of strange mistake?’” He concluded by saying: “I think there will be some folks who push against the college.”

At the time, only 2.3 percent of the student body was comprised of African Americans. The most recent figures from 2017 put it at 3.03 percent––its white population is at 70.8 percent. (Ranking service College Factual says Wheaton has more “non-resident alien” students than African Americans.) This is at a college that was founded by evangelical abolitionists in 1860 and was a major stop along the Underground Railroad.

“Wheaton has failed in its attempt, if any were even made, to achieve truly measurable and transformative cultural diversity,” Miltenberg, who has represented hundreds of college students accused of sexual misconduct, told The Fix.

‘The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Kama Sutra’ was a regifted ‘gag’

In a separate public statement, the attorney alleged that Wheaton administrators “are now publicly smearing and defaming my client in the media by using out of context statements and false accusations.”

Contrary to President Ryken’s claim, Blackmon “never asked his secretary to sit on his lap during a sexual harassment training,” and “never harassed anyone, sexually or racially,” according to Miltenberg. The college simply “weaponized the Title IX process to get rid of someone whose words and ideas didn’t always conform to their views.”

The lap allegation, Blackmon told The Roys Report blog last week, stemmed from his critical comments about “the mandatory (but rather patronizing) sexual harassment training video” he was required to watch when starting at Wheaton in September 2015.

He said he told the accuser: “Come on, it’s not like I don’t know what sexual harassment is. It’s not like I’m asking my secretary to sit on my lap and take the training for me.”

The context for another allegation, about his comments to a newly married female employee, was the fact that her “brand-new husband had been pulling all-nighters for grad-school,” Blackmon continued:

As a way of celebrating their newly wedded bliss I said, “Maybe you should surprise him and pay him a conjugal visit.” As to the conjugal-visit comment, I was genuinely trying to commiserate with her about the challenges of graduate school and newlyweds.

Regarding the incident involving “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Kama Sutra,” Miltenberg told The Fix that Blackmon “received the book from a former parishioner.”

That person’s wife wrote about the incident in a comment on a blog post on the Blackmon controversy: “I left the book on Tim’s desk. During our annual Church bazar [sic] I found the book in the donated items as we set up.” She thought that it would be “ironic to put the book on Tim’s desk.”

Later, after she and her husband “laughed about it,” her husband “snuck into Tim’s office and hid it in his library where it sat for years. I guess it made its way to Chicago. I thought it was funny to put a book that silly in Tim’s office. And the idea I was a victim is stupid.”

According to Miltenberg, at some point Blackmon “told the complainant the story after he found the surprise gag gift in his [college’s] library and then gave her the book. He thought it was a funny story. That’s all there was to it.” (Blackmon told The Roys Report he shared the story with others, but admitted that it sounded bad when “taken out of its contexts without the prank.”)

Because this was “such a benign event,” the attorney continued, “we believe that Wheaton was looking for an excuse to sever its relationship with its first African American Chaplain” and return to being a predominantly white educational institution.

‘China-man’ was an ‘inside joke’

Regarding the “ethnic slur” he allegedly used repeatedly toward an Asian American employee, Blackmon provided the context to The Roys Report.

When he started working at Wheaton, Blackmon said one of his Korean ministry colleagues was “mistaken” for a professor. They “commiserated about the realities of beginning to work” at the predominantly white institution, comparing their situation to the Wiz Khalifa song “Black and Yellow”:

[A] black pastor from Holland and a Korean ministry associate. I said, “Maybe we should call you the China-man because people can’t even tell one Asian from another, one Chinese from a Korean.” More laughter ensued and for the next couple of weeks we commiserated about the ironies of working in a predominantly white institution, and we soon moved on from our inside joke and got to work.

“This,” said Blackmon, “is what they are considering the racial/ethnic slur.”

Miltenberg also suspects that “Wheaton may have overreacted out of fear of public pressure given the #MeToo movement and other Title IX related controversies as of late”:

Wheaton has repeatedly shifted the landscape in Chaplain Blackmon’s case, at times claiming it was Title IX issue, and other times, suggesting that the situation did not fall under Title IX.

This shifting has impeded Blackmon’s ability to appropriately respond to the allegations as well as “denying him the right to counsel,” Miltenberg said. The college has also ignored its own “employee conflict resolution procedures,” he claimed.

Its actions “have put Chaplain Blackmon’s future very much at risk,” Miltenberg said.

Source: https://www.thecollegefix.com/black-immigrant-chaplain-claims-christian-college-used-bogus-title-ix-investigation-to-fire-him/

Campus Department of Education Office for Civil Rights Scholarships

PR: Growing Number of Schools Being Investigated for Title IX Violations of Sex-Specific Scholarships

Post author By saveadmin
Post date July 13, 2020

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

Growing Number of Schools Being Investigated for Title IX Violations of Sex-Specific Scholarships

WASHINGTON / July 14, 2020 – Title IX administrators are placing their institutions at risk of a burdensome OCR investigation as colleges continue to violate federal requirements banning scholarships that discriminate on the basis of sex. Title IX’s regulation 34 CFR 106.37(a) prohibits schools from offering scholarships that, “On the basis of sex, provide different amounts or types of such assistance, limit eligibility for such assistance which is of any particular type or source, apply different criteria, or otherwise discriminate.” (1)

On March 16, 2020, the SAVE Title IX Equity Project issued a press release identifying 237 schools that offered sex-scholarships that discriminate against male students (2). In response to complaints filed with the Office for Civil Rights, 84 new investigations were opened, with additional complaints still under consideration by the federal agency (3).

In the month of June, OCR opened investigations for single-sex scholarship violations against the following schools:

Auburn University, AL
University of Central Arkansas
Colorado State University-Fort Collins
University of Hawaii System
Boise State University
College of Western Idaho
Ivy Tech Community College, IN
Fort Hays State University, KS
University of Kansas-Lawrence
University of Louisville, KY
Montgomery College, MD
Community College of Baltimore County
University of Missouri-Columbia
University of Missouri-Kansas City
University of Missouri-St. Louis
Montana State University-Great Falls College
University of Montana-Missoula
East Carolina University, NC
Central Community College, NE
Metropolitan Community College, NE
Southeast Community College, NE
University of Nebraska-Omaha
New Hampshire Technical Institute-Concord’s Community College
Truckee Meadows Community College, NV
Kent State University, OH
Chemeketa Community College, OR
University of Memphis
University of Tennessee
Brigham Young University-Provo, UT
Weber State University, UT
Virginia Commonwealth University
Bellevue College, WA
University of Washington-Seattle
Washington State University
Madison Area Technical College, WI
Central Wyoming College

Two of the investigations involve allegations of particularly egregious misconduct. The University of Missouri-Columbia offers 70 scholarships to female students and only 1 scholarship to male students. Similarly, Auburn University in Alabama offers 67 scholarships to females and only 1 scholarship to male students (4).

Tulane University, an institution with not only a history of being investigated by OCR for sexual discrimination but also a history of offering female only scholarships (5), has again found itself under OCR’s microscope. Although Tulane entered into a Resolution Agreement with OCR in 2019 (6), OCR is currently evaluating yet another complaint filed in April against the institution for allegedly violating federal requirements that bar sex-discriminatory scholarships.

Mark Perry, an economist at University of Michigan-Flint who himself files OCR complaints against schools with single-sex campus programs, recently opined, “Universities are for the first time being challenged for violating Title IX by offering single sex programs/scholarships, as they continue to live in the past, as if we’re still in the 1960s or 1970s, by pretending that women are handicapped and disadvantaged.” (7)

These findings highlight how university administrators and general counsel need to exercise greater oversight to correct discriminatory practices or risk a costly investigation by the federal Office for Civil Rights.

Citations:

Campus Office for Civil Rights Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment

PR: SAVE Files Amicus Brief Against 18 Attorneys’ General, In Support of New Title IX Regulation

Post author By saveadmin
Post date July 10, 2020

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

SAVE Files Amicus Brief Against 18 Attorneys’ General, In Support of New Title IX Regulation

WASHINGTON / July 10, 2020 – SAVE filed an Amicus Brief yesterday in support of the recently released Title IX regulation, which seeks to restore fairness and due process in campus sexual harassment cases. The Amicus Brief highlights the legal inadequacies of the attorneys’ general Complaint, and urges that the Court dismiss their request for a preliminary injunction.

In 2011 the Department of Education issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” that imposed a range of new campus adjudication procedures for sexual assault cases. These changes removed a number of due process protections, such as the right of parties to be represented by counsel. As a result, hundreds of lawsuits were filed against colleges (1). Amidst intense public pressure, the Department of Education revoked its notorious Dear Colleague Letter in 2017, and later issued a new regulation on May 6, 2020. (2)

One month later, the attorneys’ general from 18 states filed a lawsuit seeking to block the long-awaited regulation. The lawsuit claimed the new regulation will “reverse decades of effort to end the corrosive effects of sexual harassment on equal access to education.” (3)

In response, the SAVE Brief highlights that Title IX “is not limited to the protection of one sex or gender; it protects all.” (page 9) This contrasts with the assertion by the California Women’s Law Center Amicus that states Title IX only serves to protect “women and girls.” (page 8).

The SAVE Brief enumerates the types of sex-based discrimination against male students: Biased educational materials; inconsistent enforcement of policies for male and female students; and a double-standard for intoxication policies. (pages 10-16).

The Brief also provides examples of universities that refused to investigate allegations by male students claiming to be victims of female-perpetrated sexual assault. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, each year 1.7 million men are sexually “made to penetrate,” compared to 1.5 million women who are raped (4).

Noting the hundreds of lawsuits filed against colleges, the SAVE Brief reaches a resounding conclusion:

“This demonstrates a simple truth: male students constitute the overwhelming majority of victims of proceedings on campus that are unlawful and constitute discrimination on the basis of sex, in violation of Title IX. Plaintiffs totally ignore this truth in their Complaint and subsequent Motion for Preliminary Injunction. This is especially astounding given that the deprivation of students’ rights in the disciplinary process,…was a substantial predicate for the issuance of the Regulation.” (pages 9-10)

The SAVE Amicus Brief is available online (5).

Links: