Category: Sexual Assault

DEI Programs Must be Eliminated to Reverse Declining Numbers of College Men

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date March 7, 2024

PRESS RELEASE

Rebecca Hain: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

DEI Programs Must be Eliminated to Reverse Declining Numbers of College Men

WASHINGTON / March 11, 2024 – A shocking new report was issued last week that documents 12 areas in which globally, men and boys are lagging behind women (1). These areas include education, health, homelessness, unfair treatment by the legal system, and more. In American colleges, for example, men now comprise only 42% of all undergraduate students (2).

Observers implicate a climate of anti-male hostility at college campuses (3), which can be traced to several developments in recent decades:

In 1979, the Department of Education issued a new Title IX policy on women’s sports that served to eliminate many male sports teams (4).
In 2011, the Obama Administration’s Dear Colleague Letter served to stereotype men as sexual predators (5). (Ironically, the Centers for Disease Control reports that men are victims of sexual assault by females nearly as often as women who are victims of rape (6)).
A growing number of women’s studies programs that promote Marxist-inspired theories of “patriarchal oppression” (7).
Hundreds of universities sponsor female-only scholarships and leadership programs (8).

Adding to the onslaught, colleges began to develop “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) programs in the latter part of the 2010s that granted preferences to Blacks and women. Among the 10 most highly paid DEI administrators at Ohio State University, for example, nine were female (9).

Viewing DEI programs as a “mortal threat to the American way of life” (10), nine states already have enacted laws to rein in DEI programs: Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah (11). These laws seek to prohibit colleges from having DEI offices or staff, ban mandatory diversity training, forbid the use of diversity statements in hiring and promotions, and bar colleges from considering race, sex, or national origin in admissions or employment (12).

These efforts were given a boost last June by the Supreme Court decision against Harvard College and the University of North Carolina, in which the SCOTUS ruled that considering a student’s race violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (13).

In theory, DEI programs and Title IX have opposite goals. While DEI seeks to afford preferences to women, Title IX seeks to end sex discrimination against men.

But in practice, the DEI mindset has infiltrated many Title IX offices. For example, the Association of Title IX Administrators, known as ATIXA, sponsored a conference on “True Equity at the Intersection of Title IX and DEI” (14). In its list of groups affected by “Inequitable Practices,” the program lists Students of Color, LGBTQIA+, and Women. But the fact that beleaguered men are facing an increasingly hostile environment somehow escaped the notice of ATIXA.

As a result, we are seeing cases like the Title IX investigator at the University of Maryland who endorsed a sexist Facebook quote by William Golding that said, “I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been” (15).

If lawmakers want to assure the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is not relegated to the dustbin of history, they need to move swiftly to ban Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs at colleges in their state.

Citations:

Campus Civil Rights Department of Education Due Process Legal Office for Civil Rights Sexual Assault Title IX

The Due Process Provisions of the 2020 Title IX Regulations Were Successful. We Should Fight to Keep Them.

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date March 1, 2024

The Due Process Provisions of the 2020 Title IX Regulations Were Successful. We Should Fight to Keep Them.

Jonathan Taylor, Founder, Title IX for All

March 1, 2024

The Title IX regulations that went into effect in August of 2020 were critically necessary. Before their implementation, schools too often punished and expelled students accused of misconduct (sexual harassment, assault, stalking, and so forth) in what were little more than sham proceedings. Wrongly punished students found their education prospects shattered, their careers derailed, and their reputations destroyed. Some students were punished despite not being found responsible for any misconduct. Some even committed suicide.

Among other provisions, the 2020 regulations required schools to provide accused students with meaningful notice of the accusation, meaningful access to evidence, and a meaningful opportunity to respond to the evidence. Those critical protections are now threatened by a regulatory rewrite spearheaded by the Biden administration.

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget is currently accepting meetings from the public regarding this rewrite. Advocates and concerned citizens should consider this an opportunity to make their voices heard and to push back on attempts by the Biden administration to roll back due process. To do this, it may help to draw attention to indicators that the regulations have been successful. Below are several arguments that the due process protections have been successful and should remain.

1. Trends in Lawsuits by Accused Students Reflect the Need for Due Process

The graph above shows the trend in annual filings of lawsuits by students accused of Title IX violations in state and federal courts since 2011.[1] This trend is highly consistent with changes to Title IX guidance and regulation. Simply put, the fewer the rights afforded accused students and the weaker the emphasis on due process by the current presidential administration, the more lawsuits by accused students we see. The reverse is also true.

In 2011, the Department of Education issued guidance (the “Dear Colleague” letter) for schools to investigate Title IX complaints more rigorously. The Department also threatened to revoke funding from schools that failed to comply and initiated highly visible investigations that named and shamed many of them. Afraid of lawsuits, federal investigations, and bad press, schools rushed to comply – and soon overcorrected. As you can see in the graph, that overcorrection was the genesis of the litigation movement for accused students. Lawsuits trickled in at first, gained a foothold in 2014 and 2015, and then spiked, reaching their peak in 2017 and 2018.

In September 2017, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos rescinded the Department of Education’s 2011 guidance letter and announced an imminent rulemaking process to further flesh out schools’ liabilities and the balance of rights between complainants and respondents in school grievance procedures. The Department issued a draft of the new regulations in November 2018 and published the final rule in May 2020. The rule went into effect on August 14, 2020.

DeVos’ rescinding the Dear Colleague letter and announcing a new rulemaking procedure made it clear that the era of federal complicity (if not encouragement) for schools to systematically railroad accused students was over. Consistent with this new era of due process, annual filings of lawsuits have declined by twenty or more since 2018. By 2023, lawsuits had declined by sixty percent from their peak: from 126 in 2018 to around 50 in 2013. This indicates that the regulations are having the intended effect: despite troublesome hotspots remaining, schools have, in many cases, made efforts to comply.

The decline stopped in 2022, however. That is no accident; it occurred a year after the Biden administration announced a plan to undo much of the due process protections afforded by the 2020 regulations. While 2024 has just begun, at least seven lawsuits have been filed by accused students as of mid-February. If recent trends continue, we will likely see at least as many lawsuits in 2024 as we did in 2023 – and likely more.

2. The 2020 Regulations Have Consistently Withstood Legal Challenges

Five legal challenges have been made against the regulations in federal court. All have failed to overturn them. While two failed simply because the plaintiffs lacked standing, others failed on the merits of their claims. The five lawsuits are:

Victim Rights Law Center v. DeVos

This lawsuit failed to overturn the 2020 regulations by arguing it was in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act and discriminates against women. It was, however, successful in overturning a narrow provision[2] that required schools to not rely on statements that were not subject to cross-examination when making their determinations.

2. The Women’s Student Union v. U.S. Department of Education

This case was initially dismissed for lack of standing. WSU – a feminist student association – argued the 2020 regulations would “frustrate its mission” to assist complainants. The court held otherwise: that such a group “may not establish injury by engaging in activities that it would normally pursue as part of its organizational mission. WSU appealed the dismissal to the Ninth Circuit which then stayed the case pending the completion of the Biden administration’s rulemaking process.

3. State of New York v. U.S. Department of Education

Brought by the New York Attorney General’s office, this lawsuit sought an injunction to prevent the rule from going into effect. It failed on every factor upon which injunctive relief is decided: the likelihood they would succeed on the merits of their claims, whether they or students would suffer irreparable harm, the balance of equities (“harms”) between the parties if the injunction did or did not go into effect, and the public interest. The State of New York then withdrew the lawsuit.

4. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. DeVos

A coalition of state Attorneys General brought this lawsuit to postpone the effective date of the rule, declare it unlawful, vacate it, or enjoin the Department of Education from applying and enforcing it. The motion to postpone the rule failed. The rest of the proceedings have been stayed.

5. Know Your IX et al v. DeVos

Similar to the WSU case, Know Your IX and similar organizations argued that the 2020 rule “frustrates its mission” to assist and advocate for complainants in Title IX proceedings. Judge Bennett disagreed and dismissed the case.

3. Schools Have Continuously Exhibited a Desire to Deny Due Process

The due process protections provided by the 2020 Title IX rule had one “clever workaround” for schools: they did not apply to allegations of misconduct occurring off-campus and outside an educational program or activity.[3] Schools could, however, still investigate and punish students under a “non-Title IX” policy that lacked those protections.

Advocates for complainants believed that schools would use this as an excuse to forgo investigating such alleged misconduct at all since there was now no federal requirement to do so. The reality, however, is that Title IX bureaucracy tends to be staffed by what some have called the “sex police”: bureaucrats who regard it as their mission to root out any kind of potentially offensive behavior and continuously seek reasons to expand their reach rather than retract it. Lawsuits by accused students have shown this is the case. Starting in 2021, they brought a new batch of lawsuits arguing schools were erroneously applying “non-Title IX” policies[4] as an excuse to railroad them out of campus.

The Biden administration seeks to expand the requirements of Title IX so that schools must investigate off-campus activity but without the due process protections that would curb some of the worst impulses of the sex police.

4. The 2020 Regulations Have Forced Their Opponents to Inadvertently Defend Them

Opponents of due process often argue that such protections would make school grievance procedures “too quasi-judicial” or “too court-like.” This argument is not sincere, as such groups have demanded that courts and schools recognize and treat grievance procedures as quasi-judicial and court-like when it benefits accusers.

While many examples of this exist, perhaps the most blatant recent example comes from the lawsuit Khan v. Yale in which an accused student also sued his accuser Jane Doe for defamation. Jane Doe argued that even if her statements against Khan were deliberately false and malicious, she was nonetheless entitled to immunity from a defamation lawsuit because her statements were made in the context of a quasi-judicial proceeding. In 2022, fifteen powerful advocacy groups filed an amicus brief supporting Doe’s argument – including those who opposed the 2020 regulations for being too quasi-judicial.

But as Connecticut Supreme Court held, Yale’s investigation and punishment of Khan occurred before the 2020 regulations went into effect and hence lacked virtually all the key safeguards that would establish the proceedings as quasi-judicial and entitle Jane Doe to immunity.

Other Arguments and Conclusion

Although there are numerous indicators that the 2020 regulations have been successful, these are four particularly noteworthy ones. Other potential supporting arguments could be that:

Litigation costs for universities will skyrocket if accused students are again routinely railroaded off campus, and that
The due process protections of the 2020 regulations have disincentivized false reporting and sham proceedings, which in turn bolsters the integrity of Title IX grievance procedures and allows school resources to be distributed more effectively.

Advocacy opportunities are often time sensitive; once they are gone, they are gone. This advocacy window is still open. Please go to the Office for Management and Budget website and register a meeting to make your voice heard.

Links:

[1] See the Title IX Lawsuits Database for a full listing of these lawsuits.

[2] Section 106.45(b)(6)(i)

[3] Section 106.45(b)(3)(i)

[4] Examples include Doe v. Rutgers and Doe I v. SUNY-Buffalo.

False Allegations Sexual Assault

We Need New Laws to Punish False Accusers

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date February 16, 2024

We Need New Laws to Punish False Accusers

Perses Institute

The law would punish false accusers
with a minimum prison sentence equal
to any jail time served by the victim of
the false accusation. Such a statute might look like this:

18 Stat. § 101: False Accusations of
sexual misconduct.

(a) Any person who makes any
utterance, publication or statement
that states or implies that another
person is guilty of rape or sexual
assault, knowing that the utterance,
publication or statement is false, or,
having reason to know that the
utterance, publication or statement is
false, shall be guilty of a Felony.

(b) This offense shall be charged as “False sexual reporting.”

(d) Any person who violates the
provisions of subsection (a) shall
serve a term in prison not less than
any amount of time, including pre
trial confinement that any falsely
accused served as a result of the false
accusation.

(e) Any person who violates the
provisions of subsections (a) or (b)
shall be strictly liable for any
damages the falsely accused victim
incurs as a result of the false
utterance, publication or statement.

(f) Any court entering judgment
against a false accuser under this
provision shall award full restitution
to any falsely accused, including
restitution or damages that arise or
become known after any hearing on
restitution. A victim of a false
accusation of rape or sexual assault
may re-open the issue of restitution in
any criminal proceeding under this
provision, at any time, to seek
additional compensation for
restitution of damages or injuries.

(g) There shall be no statute of
limitations for any charge brought
under this provision.

(h) Any person who violates the
provisions of subsection (a) or (b) of
this provision shall be required to
register as a sex offender under any
applicable state or federal laws.

(i) Punishment under this provision
shall be the minimum prison sentence
as specified in subsection (d) up to
and including twenty-five years in
prison, plus a fine of up to $500,000
or both.

Campus Department of Education Due Process Free Speech Office for Civil Rights Sexual Assault Title IX

To Thwart Harmful Changes to Federal Title IX Policy, Candidates for Office Are Invited to Sign Pledge

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date January 16, 2024

PRESS RELEASE

Rebecca Hain: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

To Thwart Harmful Changes to Federal Title IX Policy, Candidates for Office Are Invited to Sign Pledge

WASHINGTON / January 17, 2024 – Proposed changes to the federal Title IX law have become a flash-point of controversy in the upcoming 2024 elections. The new policy, which is expected to expand the definition of sex to include “gender identity,” would have destructive effects on women’s sports, gender transitioning among children, parental rights, free speech, and due process (1).

Title IX is the law designed to curb sex discrimination in schools. The U.S. Department of Education is vowing to release a new Title IX regulation in March (2).

Some have charged that Title IX has become “weaponized” to curtail free speech (3) and curb due process (4). Last month, a jury awarded a historic $15 million verdict against Thomas Jefferson University for flagrant due process violations by its Title IX office (5).

Abuses of the federal law have become a recent focus of heated debate:

Numerous attorneys general and federal lawmakers have issued statements of opposition (6).
25 Republican governors have called on the Biden administration to withdraw its proposed changes to Title IX. (7)
Title IX has been hotly discussed during the Republican presidential debates (8, 9).
Presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump have both issued statements calling for the abolition of the U.S. Department of Education (10).

In response, SAVE is inviting candidates for federal, state, or local office to sign the “Candidate Pledge to Protect Schools, Children, and Families from the Federal Title IX Plan.” The Pledge states,

When elected to office, I pledge to work to assure that:

Schools and other organizations shall utilize the traditional binary definition of “sex.”
Schools shall obtain prior consent from parents for any use of gender pronouns, or gender-dysphoria counseling or treatments.
Parents shall have the right to examine and opt their children out of any school curricula dealing with sexuality and gender identity.
Schools shall only allow biological females to participate in women’s sports, enter women’s locker rooms, and use women’s bathrooms.
Schools shall adhere to Constitutional due process procedures to protect falsely accused males from Title IX complaints.
Schools and other institutions shall fully uphold Constitutional free speech guarantees.

The Candidate Pledge can be viewed online (11). To date, 44 lawmakers have signed the statement (12). The elected officials come from the following 19 states: Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Candidates can indicate their support for the Pledge by sending a confirmatory email to: rthompson@saveservices.org

Citations:

Department of Education Due Process False Allegations Innocence Office for Civil Rights Press Release Sexual Assault Title IX

To End ‘Kangaroo Courts,’ Lawmakers Need to Remove Qualified Immunity from Corrupt Title IX Officials

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date January 8, 2024

PRESS RELEASE

Rebecca Hain: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

To End ‘Kangaroo Courts,’ Lawmakers Need to Remove Qualified Immunity from Corrupt Title IX Officials

WASHINGTON / January 9, 2024 – Recent incidents reveal that many campus Title IX offices are ignoring fundamental due process protections for the falsely accused, resulting in college disciplinary committees being dubbed “Kangaroo Courts.” Given that these biases are so egregious and likely intentional, lawmakers need to enact laws to remove qualified immunity from campus Title IX personnel.

These are three recent examples of egregious due process violations:

Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia: After he was sexually assaulted by a female resident, physician John Abraham reported the incident to his supervisor at the university. But inexplicably, his complaint was not forwarded to the Title IX office and never investigated (1). Abraham was forced from his faculty position before any investigation could be conducted.

In December, a jury decided in favor of Abraham, awarding him $11 million in compensation for financial losses and $4 million in punitive damages for the university’s “outrageous conduct.” (2)

University of Maryland, College Park: A UMD student recently sued the University of Maryland, accusing the institution of a biased disciplinary proceeding (3). The lead investigator in the case was Jamie Brennan, who had previously posted on her Facebook page a quote stating, “I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been.”

The man’s lawsuit notes, “Investigators are supposed to ‘identify discrepancies’ in the stories and ‘ask the hard questions.’…In this case there were several discrepancies for which there was no follow-up and certainly no ‘hard questions’… When asked to explain her conduct, Brennan retorted, ‘that was not something we sought to obtain.’” (4)

University of Tulsa, Oklahoma: Impartiality is the foundation of due process. But at the University of Tulsa, the Title IX coordinator made a video promising accusers that they “will be believed.” (5) A similar promise was not made to falsely accused students.

No surprise, a sex discrimination lawsuit alleged the same Title IX coordinator had restricted an accused student’s access to evidence and treated him as guilty throughout the process. In August, the case was remanded to the Tulsa County District Court for final resolution (6).

These three incidents are not the exception to the rule. An analysis of 175 lawsuits decided in favor of the falsely accused student concluded that in most cases, the judicial decisions were based on the fact that colleges were failing to observe the most fundamental notions of fairness, often so gross as to suggest that sex bias was the motivating factor (7).

Indeed, recent actions by the federal Department of Education that flout basic requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act have been denounced as a “contempt of court” and “contempt of law.” (8)

Given the continuing lack of good faith on the part of the Title IX personnel, lawmakers must consider the removal of qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is the legal doctrine that shields officials from personal accountability when they violate a citizen’s constitutional rights.

The drive to end qualified immunity for unscrupulous police officers now enjoys broad support, including from U.S. senator Mike Lee (9), Americans Against Qualified Immunity (10), and the National Police Accountability Project (11). An online petition, “End Qualified Immunity!” has garnered nearly 130,000 signatures (12).

It’s time to eliminate qualified immunity for corrupt Title IX officials and bring an end to the campus Kangaroo Courts.

Links:

#MeToo Believe the Victim Campus Due Process False Allegations Investigations Rape-Culture Hysteria Sexual Assault Title IX

$15 Million Verdict Against Thomas Jefferson Univ. Signals Fall of ‘Believe Women’ Movement

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date December 13, 2023

PRESS RELEASE

Rebecca Hain: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

$15 Million Verdict Against Thomas Jefferson Univ. Signals Fall of ‘Believe Women’ Movement

WASHINGTON / December 13, 2023 – On September 28, 2018, a full-page advertisement appeared in the New York Times that stated simply, “Believe women” (1). These words would be repeated countless times over the years, eviscerating the presumption of innocence and tilting the outcome of sexual assault cases against the accused. But a sexual assault allegation that recently ended with a $15 million jury verdict reveals the days of the vacuous “Believe women” phrase may be numbered.

The former Soviet Union was famous for its notorious Show Trials in which innocence or guilt was decided not by the evidence presented, but rather by whether the accused person came from a favored social group. If an investigation was conducted, it only was intended to create a façade of impartiality for the bogus trial with a predetermined outcome.

Which is exactly what happened in Thomas Jefferson University’s adjudication of medical resident Jessica Phillips’ accusation of rape against attending orthopedic surgeon John Abraham.

The saga began at an alcohol-fueled party on June 23, 2018 in Philadelphia. As the party began to wind down, Phillips forced whiskey into Abraham’s mouth and began to aggressively kiss him, according to the man. She pulled him to the floor, where they had sex. Abraham promptly reported the incident to his supervisor at the university. But inexplicably, his complaint was not forwarded to the Title IX office and never investigated (2).

In the meantime, the woman informed her husband of the incident and filed a complaint with her residency director. Four days after the sexual liaison occurred, Abraham received a Notice of Concern from Jefferson’s Title IX coordinator, alleging that he had engaged in “non-consensual sexual intercourse” with Phillips.

The university Chief Medical Officer also warned Abraham that if he did not immediately take a leave of absence, he would be suspended and reported to the Medical Staff and National Practitioner Database (3). Abraham believed he had choice but to capitulate.

All this happened before the University had completed its investigation.

On January 8, 2019, the University concluded its probe, with no finding of responsibility against the man. A police investigation of the incident likewise did not result in any charges being filed.

But the damage had been done. Abraham had been forced out of his position, his reputation destroyed, his career in tatters. The acclaimed surgeon was the latest victim of a campus Kangaroo Court.

A year later, Abraham filed a Title IX lawsuit against the University, accusing the institution of sex bias for failing to investigate his original complaint of sexual assault. At the trial, attorneys invoked the damsel-in-distress argument, claiming that Abraham “was in a powerful hierarchy position” relative to Phillips, as if a high-achieving woman in a medical residency somehow had lost her ability to utter the word, “no.”

On December 3, the jury met to decide on the case. Appalled at the university’s failure to investigate the surgeon’s complaint, the jury decided in favor of Abraham, awarding him $11 million in compensation for his financial losses, and $4 million in punitive damages for the university’s “outrageous conduct.” (4)

After five years of legal wrangling, a jury of five women and three men unanimously decided to not believe the woman. And the millions of falsely accused Americans could give a sigh of relief (5).

Links:

Civil Rights Domestic Violence Due Process False Allegations Feminism Innocence Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment

As False Allegations Spiral Out of Control, Feminist Groups Work to Give False Accusers a Free Pass

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date August 23, 2023

PRESS RELEASE

Rebecca Hain: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

As False Allegations Spiral Out of Control, Feminist Groups Work to Give False Accusers a Free Pass

WASHINGTON / August 23, 2023 – Courtney Conover of Pennsylvania made a series of false accusations against Dr. James Amor and another person, claiming they had mishandled the complaints of victims of rape and sexual assault. Using her blog and social media account, Conover accused them of being “the devil,” a “human monster,” had been “aiding and abetting a pedophile for two decades,” and other outlandish claims.

The jury was so disturbed by the accusations that it found in favor of Dr. Amor and awarded $1.4 million in damages. This past Friday, U.S. District Court Judge John Gallagher upheld the jury finding, although he did reduce the damages (1).

False allegations represent a growing threat across the country. A 2020 YouGov survey found that 8% of Americans had been falsely accused of sexual assault, domestic violence, or child abuse (2). Three years later, that number had increased to 10% (3).

Unfortunately, feminist groups are working to give a free pass to false accusers, focusing on both the civil and criminal settings:

Civil: Feminists are seeking to confer absolute legal immunity on women who make accusations that are knowingly false. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that lawsuits for damages from defamatory claims reflect “our basic concept of the essential dignity and worth of every human being.” (4)

But that didn’t stop Legal Momentum (formerly, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund) from filing an amicus brief in Khan v. Yale University seeking absolute immunity for the false accuser (5). In June, the Connecticut Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Khan, rejecting the Legal Momentum arguments (6).

Criminal: Feminist organizations are pressuring prosecutors to not file criminal charges against false accusers, even though every state has laws that ban persons from making false reports. Last week a group known as End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI) released an email message titled, “Is Prosecution for False Reporting Ever Appropriate?”

The message links to a longer document with the provocative title, “Raped, Then Jailed: The Risks of Prosecution for Falsely Reporting Sexual Assault” (7). The report fails to clarify the key distinction between an allegation that is “unfounded” — not meeting the legal standard of proof — versus “false,” that is, made in bad faith.

The crux of the EVAWI argument is that prosecuting an accuser is contrary to the “public interest.” Predictably, the feminist organization’s concept of “public interest” excludes any consideration of the effects of a bogus accusation on the falsely accused, including its devastating effects on the person’s reputation, mental and physical health, social standing, and career opportunities.

Worse, EVAWI never mentions the fact that false allegations and perjury are now the number one cause of wrongful convictions, according to the National Registry of Exonerations (8).

September 9 is International Falsely Accused Day (9). The global event is intended to raise awareness of how easy it is to fall victim to a false accusation, to point out how the presumption of innocence has been eroded, and how the law continues to be upended in the name of “social justice.”

Citations:

Due Process False Allegations Sexual Assault

False Allegations Forum: Pushing Back on Legal Dominance Ideology

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date June 14, 2023

False Allegations Forum: Pushing Back on Legal Dominance Ideology

By Sean Parker

June 14, 2023

‘But eventually Dum spiro spero – ‘while I breathe, I hope”

The False Allegations Forum (FAF) is a union of various groups working in the UK FA movement, supporting those claiming to be falsely accused, their families and loved ones. The Forum includes representatives of FACT, FASO, PPMI, Accused.me, Fighting for the Falsely Accused, Letters to the Establishment, Empowering the Innocent and individual campaigners, and the remit is on putting the accumulated knowledge and experience of a 25-plus years campaign into action.

In the inaugural meeting in early June 2023, subjects were raised such as the Law Commission’s proposal to make theoretical ‘rape myths’ obligatory to be followed by judges, juryless trials, recovery groups for the falsely accused, and how all who go through this process are treated in the media. If judges are to decide alone, how will they ascertain that defendants were aware of these supposed rape myth-based offences at the time of the alleged incident beyond reasonable doubt?

It is acknowledged that the moves by ‘progressive’ activists to transform the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ standard to ‘conviction-upon-allegation’ started in the 1990s with the care home scandal in North Wales and the north of England. Each time the media cycle turns (whether that be through stories such as those of Bill Clinton, John Worboys, Jimmy Savile, Carl Beech or Harvey Weinstein), a new chunk seems to be lopped off the once apparently golden trunk of the British justice system.

If the intention is to outlaw casual sex even further than it has been already in the 21^st century, then the new proposals by the Criminal Law Reform Network (CLRN) to make ‘deceit sex’ a new offence should do the trick. However, as was raised by Ian Osborne at the meeting, his son John Lee Osborne was already serving a sentence of 18 years due to such allegations – of which he maintains his innocence, some four years after conviction. This proposal puts putting the cart before the horse into absurd new territory.

Should all contested convictions for category 2-3 rape or sexual assault from 2003 onwards be judicially reviewed with the presumption of the new category of ‘sexual misadventure’? The justice system has gone beyond ‘believing the victims’ to determination to not further upset complainants, however variable the recollections. By pushing the same levers of power as trans activists in attempting to invert natural reality, legal dominance ideologues are trying to redefine sexual behaviour with the presumption of these so-called ‘rape myths’ (recently discredited by Nuffield Foundation research, as reported by Joshua Rozenburg).

The weaponisation of ‘shame’ in the false allegations industry ensures that almost all successful appeals are reported as being on ‘technicalities’, since the accused mostly want to run and hide when it’s all over, and ‘new evidence’ is required for convictions which have increasingly needed no evidence to convict in the first place.

Power-preoccupied activists versus The People is the name of the game in the media affiliated political realm, as the question of whether the patriarchy of Moses or Mick Jagger that needs dismantling is next on the news agenda. Clare’s Law is one in an array of named laws, spannered through after the death of a woman at the hands a man; in this case a mentally deranged ex-turned-stalker. This law ensures that potential new partners are told about the criminal records of their new beaus, regardless of their maintaining innocence stance or lack of violence/controlling behaviours. This is in effect a counter-intuitive overreach, with no interest in being on a case-by-case basis, since the risk criteria in allegations of sexual misconduct is already so vast, and vehemently contested.

The counter-discourse of the False Allegations Forum opens up all such arbitrary – if well meaning – moves up to a scrutiny many of them didn’t seem to receive in the House of Commons. Even when MP Christopher Chope asked for a pause to hear the ‘upskirting’ bill -as all MPs are in fact required to do – he was hurricaned by incensed politicos and their facilitating activists.

Fake doctors and activist academics abound in this sphere, grandstanding on Twitter and emotioneering from their legally-tenured day jobs at Chambers or in universities. Their activities since 2003 (at least) have engendered a sort of New Protestantism across society, as the progressive agenda of what has come to be known as ‘woke’ has run up against a far deeper culture of pragmatic thought.

The false allegations industry has made the dating scene a new minefield, as online swipe-rights have met Tinder or Plenty of Fish-era playboys, newly relabelled ‘predators’. The CLRN’s proposed new offence of deceit sex would make lying about being in a relationship punishable as a form of rape – as could be posing with an expensive car when (he) can’t in fact even afford the insurance. Seduction by pretence used to be the stuff of light films, and often a part of how a couple met. Now that is to be criminalised, leading to even more bizarre hearings – spun in the press as journalists are apparently compelled to do.

The intellectual cowardice involved in forever pitching empathy versus objectivity in a culture that has for some decades been degrading masculinity has resulted in biased media reports being essentially an abuse of free speech principles. Whatever his other moves as Justice Secretary, the orchestrated, bullying pile-on on to the admittedly redoubtable Dominic Raab was an example of the politicised defenestration of an alpha male: Raab’s unapologetic discontinuation of radfem-in-high-office Vera Baird’s contract as Victims Commissioner clearly unacceptable.

Legal dominance ideology is eroding if not destroying western institutions, removing elected officials if they don’t follow the prescribed progressive narrative. The new and non restrictive definition of MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) is distinct from ‘incel’ (involuntary celibate) culture by resembling a sort of postmodern priesthood in its uncompromising, exasperated reaction to extreme establishment feminism. The benefits of heteronormative relationships are increasingly failing to outweigh the negatives.

There is no actual patriarchy any more in the Anglosphere – if there indeed ever was – but there has been a class system, which has been replaced by Diversity, Equality and Inclusion policies as the new elite ruling class. Jurassic prisons, with their inmates as dinosaurs of the cultural revolution, are housing thousands of less high profile Gary Glitter-type cases, with completely understandable ‘dark web’ curiosities standing against them in appraisal of their ‘risk factors’. An allegedly predatory appetite in 1975 is not the same as a hypervigilant, neurotic OAP in the mid 2020s, but the false allegations industry has no interest in recognising that nuance, particularly in those prisons’ eagerness to deny prisoners communications.

Trying to appease the new pseudo-liberals while they merrily cancel Rock n’ Roll as a problematic artform is an endless slog, as the radical feminists take on the Trans activists, lumped in with the Men’s Rights Activists, all of them out-moralising each other over free speech taboos – be they holocaust exaggeration, slavery, rape myths, or the age of consent.

Campus Civil Rights Due Process Legal Sexual Assault Sexual Harassment Title IX

Supreme Court Must Resolve the Many Circuit Splits that Divide Students’ Rights

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date May 25, 2023

Supreme Court Must Resolve the Many Circuit Splits that Divide Students’ Rights

Benjamin North

Associate & Title IX Advisor, Binnall Law Group

May 24, 2023

When a student graduates from high school and looks at potential colleges, they don’t typically do legal research to see where their federal rights differ across federal circuits. They make a very reasonable assumption that their basic rights are the same, because all colleges in the United States are subject to the same federal laws. Unfortunately, this could not be further from the truth when it comes to student discipline. And the recent proliferation of litigation against colleges (meticulously tracked by Brooklyn College professor KC Johnson [1]) has only made the issue more dire.

Court simply cannot agree on the Title IX disciplinary process. Without uniformity in the law, students across the country are subject to wildly different standards, both with respect to what process a university must take before depriving students of their education, and as to what they must allege in a lawsuit if it becomes necessary to correct discriminatory disciplinary actions in court.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has been thus far reluctant to take any of these issues up on certiorari, and its continued delay in resolving these divides will only result in more inconsistencies. Students deserve the same rights under the same law, and it is critical that the Supreme Court ensure that basic consistency.

The first area in which courts are split is the requirement of constitutional due process; that is, the process that a public school must follow before depriving its students of their education in the form of a suspension or expulsion.

The threshold question, of course, is whether education is protected by due process, and if there is any “due process” required at all. If there is no due process required at all, public schools are free as a constitutional matter to expel tuition paying students for no reason at all, and students have no recourse.

While this would seem on its face to be unjust and incompatible with our system of government (and contrary to existing Supreme Court law in Goss v. Lopez [2]), federal district courts in the Fourth Circuit [3] consistently decline to find any protected interest in public university students’ education, leading to that same result: that students are not entitled to any due process at all. While several circuit courts have held that due process applies (at least the First, [4] Fifth, [5] Sixth, [6] Seventh, [7] and Eighth [8] Circuits), the continued failure of the Supreme Court to address the issue directly means that students in the Fourth Circuit very likely will continue to be on the receiving end of judicial opinions that fail to recognize any due process interests whatsoever. Students deserve a clear and basic rule, that due process applies in the public university setting.

Of course, once it is decided that due process applies, the next question is what process is due? On this question, circuits also are split.

The Sixth Circuit, for example, held in Doe v. Baum [9] that live adversarial cross examination was required by due process in student discipline cases where credibility is an issue. The First Circuit disagreed, holding in Haidak v. University of Massachusetts-Amherst [10] that live cross examination is not required; rather, impartial questioning by a hearing panel is required. Setting aside the point that the Sixth Circuit took the correct approach (the standard of an “impartial” hearing panel is more vague and far less workable that simply requiring cross examination, among other issues), the issue remains that students in different circuits have different rights, under the same Constitution.

Similarly, circuits are split on what Title IX requires in these cases. The Second Circuit held in Yusuf v. Vassar College [11] that students seeking to remedy discriminatory discipline under Title IX must plead “erroneous outcome” or “selective enforcement” causes of action under the statute. The Seventh Circuit in Doe v. Purdue [12] disagreed, holding that students need only plead facts sufficient to infer discrimination (which tracks almost exactly the language of the Title IX statute itself). This is a foundational difference on what it takes to bring a Title IX lawsuit in the first place, and again, students have wildly different standards based on where they live or attend school.

Even more alarming, sometimes schools assert during litigation that they may have been biased against the student, but it wasn’t on the basis of sex. This argument, schools hope, saves them from liability under Title IX because the law does not prohibit schools from railroading students per se, only if they do so on the basis of the student’s sex.

Circuits again disagree on whether this argument is sufficient to save the school from liability, or put another way, whether a student has to disprove other potential causes of discipline before getting to discovery or to trial. For example, whereas the Eleventh Circuit in Doe v. Samford [13] affirmed a dismissal of a Title IX lawsuit because the student did not disprove other potential causes of the discipline (other than bias on the basis of sex) in his complaint, the Tenth Circuit in Doe v. University of Denver [14] permitted a lawsuit to go to trial on this issue. The Tenth Circuit reasoned, correctly, that the issue of what bias the university used (bias on the basis of sex or bias on the basis of the student being the accused) is a question of fact that needs to be resolved by a jury, because it comes down to what is more believable. Once again, circuits are split, and students across the country do not have uniform rights.

The above is not an exhaustive listing of all of the disagreements among the federal circuit courts in this area. There are other important areas where courts disagree, including the causation standard for Title IX. But for sake of brevity, suffice it to say that students across the country do not have a clear view of what their rights are. Students deserve the same rights under the same law, and I desperately hope that the Supreme Court takes the opportunity to make that a reality in the near future.

Citations:

[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CsFhy86oxh26SgTkTq9GV_BBrv5NAA5z9cv178Fjk3o/edit#gid=0

[2] Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975)

[3] See, e.g., Doe v. Alger, 175 F. Supp. 3d 646 (W.D. Va. 2016); Dillow v. Virginia Polytechnic Inst. & State Univ., No. 7:22CV00280, 2023 WL 2320765 (W.D. Va. Mar. 2, 2023); Doe v. Virginia Polytechnic Inst. & State Univ., 400 F. Supp. 3d 479 (W.D. Va. 2019).

[4] See Haidak, infra.

[5] Walsh v. Hodge, 975 F.3d 475 (5th Cir. 2020)

[6] See Baum, infra.

[7] See Purdue, infra.

[8] Doe v. Univ. of Arkansas – Fayetteville, 974 F.3d 858 (8th Cir. 2020)

[9] Doe v. Baum, 903 F.3d 575 (6th Cir. 2018)

[10] Haidak v. Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst, 933 F.3d 56 (1st Cir. 2019)

[11] Yusuf v. Vassar Coll., 35 F.3d 709 (2d Cir. 1994)

[12] Doe v. Purdue Univ., 928 F.3d 652 (7th Cir. 2019)

[13] Doe v. Samford Univ., 29 F.4th 675 (11th Cir. 2022)

[14] Doe v. Univ. of Denver, 1 F.4th 822 (10th Cir. 2021)

Campus Department of Education Due Process Free Speech Law Enforcement Office for Civil Rights Sexual Assault Title IX

String of Transgender Incidents Reveal Threats of Biden Title IX Plan

Post author By Edward Bartlett
Post date April 11, 2023

PRESS RELEASE

Rebecca Hain: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

String of Transgender Incidents Reveal Threats of Biden Title IX Plan

WASHINGTON / April 11, 2023 – Three recent incidents reveal the growing lawlessness of the national transgender movement. The newfound prominence of transgenderism can be traced to the Title IX proposal released last June by the Biden Department of Education (1). Following are the three incidents:

March 9, Stanford University: Judge Stuart Duncan was invited to give a talk to students at the Stanford Law School. But a group of students with signs that read, “Trans Lives Matter” repeatedly interrupted his comments, forcing him to cut short his presentation.
The students were protesting the fact that in 2015, Duncan had denied the request of Norman Varner, previously convicted of child exploitation, to change his sex and be referred to by a female name (2). Stanford University later issued an apology (3).
March 27, Nashville: Armed with a rifle, pistol, and handgun, Audrey Hale rushed into Covenant School and fired 152 shots, killing three staff members and three students. Hale had self-identified as transgender (4).
April 6, San Francisco State University: Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines gave a speech at the San Francisco State University to explain her opposition to the participation of biological males in women’s sports. In response, a group of activists began to frantically chant, “Trans rights are human rights.” The activists chased Riley down a hallway, assaulting her repeatedly and forcing her to seek safety in a room. To secure her release, the activists demanded that Riley pay each of them a $10 “ransom.” (5)

The recent surge of transgender activism can be traced back to June 23, 2022 when the Biden Department of Education released its proposed Title IX regulation, the federal law that was designed to curb sex discrimination in schools. The Biden regulation seeks to change the definition of “sex” to include “gender identity,” a change that would bolster the prominence of the transgender movement in America.

Recent developments reveal other serious defects with the Biden proposal (6):

Parental Rights: On March 24, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Parents Bill of Rights, which would help protect against secretive school policies and overly-sexualized instructional content (7).
Due Process: Last week, a judge ruled against The College of New Jersey, citing a myriad of procedural irregularities and allowing its adjudicators to be influenced by external pressures to convict a student accused of sexual misconduct (8).
Free Speech: An article in the Washington Examiner revealed that a majority of U.S. universities have instituted anonymous “snitching” protocols for statements perceived to be biased (9).

To date, 210 organizational members of the Title IX Network have announced their opposition to the Biden Title IX plan (10). We urge the Department of Education to immediately abandon its plan to release a new Title IX regulation.

Links:

Tags Transgenderism