Women’s rights and higher education advocates are cheering President Joe Biden’s order to review Trump administration Title IX policies, which included regulations that allows those alleged sexual assault offenders to cross-examine their accusers in nonjudicial hearings.
“This is an important step,” said Shiwali Patel, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, of Biden’s executive order., The Associated Press reported. “The Title IX rules changes that took place under the Trump administration are incredibly harmful, and they’re still in effect.”
The president’s guidance was issued in an executive order Monday — International Women’s Day — titled Guaranteeing an Educational Environment Free from Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Including Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity.
“It is the policy of my administration that all students should be guaranteed an educational environment free from discrimination on the basis of sex, including discrimination in the form of sexual harassment, which encompasses sexual violence, and including discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” Biden says in the order.
The order gives Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland 100 days to identify policies and regulations that don’t meet his guidance. In the order, Biden directly mentions a review of a May 2020 Trump administration policy that was said then to “restore due process in campus proceedings.”
Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972 protects people from discrimination based on sex at institutions that receive federal financial assistance.
The American Council of Education — which represents more than 1,700 higher education organizations, including public and private colleges and universities — hopes the review results in “a process that does not turn us into courts, that allows us to treat both sides fairly and equally, and does not attempt to micromanage campus proceedings,” said Terry W. Hartle, a senior vice president of government relations and public affairs at ACE, The New York Times reported.
Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ Title IV regulations included rules on how college campuses address sexual assault allegations, according to the National Review. DeVos’ system mandated “due process rights for individuals accused of harassment or assault, in which the accused has the right to a live hearing and to cross-examine accusers.”
“While supporters cheered the due process protections, Democrats, women’s groups and others have argued the system allows assailants and schools to shirk responsibility and discourage victims from coming forward,” the National Review reported.
Biden’s executive order Monday only established a review of policy and did not immediately suspend the former administration’s policy. It was unclear if Biden’s guidance would “return the rules to the Obama administration’s approach” — which focused on protecting the accuser — “or find some middle ground that incorporates lessons from the last two administrations,” reported the Times.
Before his election, Biden campaigned on reviving the Obama-era guidance, The Washington Post reported.
Sexual assaults on America’s college campuses has been widely reported in recent years.
In Utah, campus Title IX programs at Brigham Young University and Utah State University have been criticized recently for not protecting its students and both have undergone administrative changes in the last several years.
In 2016, investigations at BYU found that the university’s Title IX office was sharing details of its sexual assault investigations with the Honor Code Office, creating a chilling effect for reporting assaults on campus, the Deseret News reported. BYU has since hired new Title IX leadership and updated its policies, to include an “amnesty clause” to shield students that report sexual assaults from honor code disciplinary action.
In 2018, the Title IX office at the Utah State University “did little to address the problem” of a faculty sexually harassing and assaulting students, according to the Deseret News. The university then reorganized its own Title IX office, which included leadership changes, and added more staff and oversight to the program.