I'm reading that it were "more likely than not" as opposed to "beyond a reasonable doubt". Not to add further fuel to the fire, but, once again- blacks are said to be guilty at a disproportionate rate.
"Five years later, American higher education has gotten the message that the White House and the Department of Education were sending — and a lot has changed.
But still there are questions. What is an adequate solution for the dark and persistent threat of sexual violence on campus? And what should colleges and universities expect from a very different administration, headed by a president who has himself been accused of sexual assault?
The same day that Biden spoke at UNH, the education department's Office of Civil Rights sent a 19-page document that would come to be known as the “Dear Colleague” letter to colleges and universities.
The letter contained new guidance about Title IX, the federal statute prohibiting sex discrimination “under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
The letter read: “If a school knows or reasonably should know about student-on-student harassment that creates a hostile environment, Title IX requires the school to take immediate action to eliminate the harassment, prevent its recurrence, and address its effects.” And it added that the department’s definition of harassment explicitly includes sexual violence.
Alexandra Brodsky cofounded “Know Your IX" while on campus at Yale Law School; today it's a national student group that supports students who challenge their college or university to prevent "sexual or dating violence." She is clear about the source of that obligation — it's Title IX: “The Obama administration didn’t invent these rights; these are our rights under law.”
The particular legal foundations of the “Dear Colleague” letter date back to 1977, when female students sued Yale over, for example, professors offering an “A” for sex — or a “C” for refusing it. The plaintiffs in Alexander v. Yale argued that sexual harassment was itself a form of sexual discrimination.
They lost their case on a technicality, but the court accepted the legal reasoning: that a university’s failure to adequately confront a hostile climate of sexual harassment could represent a Title IX violation in itself.
“What the [Obama] administration has done,” Brodsky added, “is, for the first time, to hold schools to account through their own enforcement.”
The "Dear Colleague" letter includes a long section on best practices: administrators should inform students reporting an assault of their options, and allow them to speak to police. They should conclude investigations promptly — ideally, within two months. And hearing officers should decide cases of sexual harassment not "beyond a reasonable doubt," but by a “preponderance of evidence” standard — meaning hearing officers don’t need to be convinced that an incident occurred, only that it is more likely than not.
But the critical paragraph comes at the letter's end — an offer most institutions of higher learning can’t refuse:
"When conducting Title IX enforcement activities, OCR seeks to obtain voluntary compliance from recipients. When a recipient does not come into compliance voluntarily, OCR may initiate proceedings to withdraw Federal funding by the Department or refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice for litigation."
The loss of federal funds could bring many of the richest research universities, public or private, to their knees.
So as the OCR began to announce investigations into the mishandling of reported sexual harassment and violence — 344 since 2011, by the count of the Chronicle of Higher Education — colleges and universities began to change their ways, sometimes dramatically.
It’s that change that makes Alexandra Brodsky describe the Obama administration’s OCR as a “tremendous ally of students and civil-rights activists."
But the Obama approach has its critics. Harvard Law professors Jeannie Suk and Jacob Gersen say it resulted in a “sex bureaucracy,” placing more and more ordinary behavior under federal oversight.
And feminist legal theorist Janet Halley, their colleague who has contested the OCR's process in the Harvard Law Review, describes the “Dear Colleague” letter as a case of “administrative overreach.”
Halley, who has participated in sexual-violence cases at Harvard, has had concerns about their fairness from the beginning.
She took pains to say that she cares deeply about sexual assault, but she worries about an overcorrection, prompted by OCR, that moves universities from ignoring the rights of accusers to trampling on those of the accused.
“Just imagine if you were asked to go in to explain why you didn’t commit a sexual assault,” Halley said. With no information as to what you’re accused of, who’s accusing you, or when it allegedly happened, “you’re required to start explaining yourself. And you’re 18 years old, and no one is helping you."
Halley describes the new system as all but designed to produce “false positives” — innocent students wrongfully punished — both because of the looser evidentiary standard and because of Title IX officers’ desire to produce numbers that show they're taking sexual violence seriously.
In her own experience, Halley says, that has meant that a disproportionate share of those accused, and those punished, are men of color and those who have less access to family resources and legal help."
According to what you said, its the letter, that requirea the preponderance of evidence thing, and not beyond reasonable doubt, etc, and NOT the actual TITLE 9 LAW Itself.
Under TITLE 9 LAW colleges are allowed to use beyond reasonable doubt in tbeir enforcement of Title 9.
The letter is a LETTER, IT IS NOT LAW. legally speaking colleges that OBEY TITLE 9 LAW by using beyond reasonable doubt enforcement, are NOT in violation of the law, and as such cant LEGALLY take away those colleges funding, and if try to take away funding, colleges can, wod be able to successfuy win a court case against the govt trying to take away tbeir funding.
Legally colleges cant lose their funding for not following the letter WHICH IS NOT NOT NOT LAW.
Colleges can only lose funding for not obeying Title 9 law.
Thus if a college uses the beyond reasonable doubt standard to enforce, obey Title 9 law, they cant legally have their funding taken away, and if their funding is taken away, they would be able to successfully sue.
ALSO:
Both the letter and the law mention STUDENT harrassment. The law, and the letter NEVER reference, mention a NON student situation.
Dom is a student yes. But for the law to apply its not enough for Dom to be a student, because he was not harrassed, assaulted, raped, etc.
It was a non student that was supposedly, alledgedly, tbeoretically raped, etc.
According to the law, letter it has to be a STUDENT who is RAPED, etc, and if its not, if its a non student tbat is raped, tben the Title 9 law, nor the letter applies, according to the wording of both the letter, and title 9 law, that both use the words STUDENT who is raped.
Text, words, wording matters.
If thats not the intent, tbey need to rewrite, reword the law by CONGRESS., not try to interpret the intent not the wording of the current law.
By that since Dom was accused by a NON STUDENT, then LEGALLY WSU, SCB has tbe right, should use the beyond reasonable doubt standard.
And the SCB does have tbe right to use the text proving Dom innocent, because it was a NON STUDENT accusing Dom.
If it had been a actual WSU student who had accused Dom, then WSU's SCB, would be bound by Title 9, an or the letter.
But it was a non student that accused Dom, so according to that and the wording of the law and letter, neither the Title 9 law, nor the letter applies.
Actual wording, not intent in legal documents, laws, etc, is everything, mey, in application, enforcement of legal documents, laws.
