Obama Administration Undermines Safeguards for Teachers and Students

In the Washington Examiner, I explain how the Education Department is both undermining protections for falsely-accused students and teachers, and reducing the accuracy of campus decisions in sexual harassment cases. This is occurring as a result of demands contained in an April 4 “Dear Colleague” letter sent by a political appointee (Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali) to the nation’s school officials, who are now complying with those demands even though they lack a sound legal basis. In the Washington Post, attorney Wendy Kaminer wrote that “the Education Department’s new policies increase the risk that students wrongly accused of misconduct will be found guilty, suspended or expelled, and tarred as stalkers or rapists.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education took issue with the Education Department’s demands in this letter. The Daily Caller covers the controversy here.

George Mason University Law Professor David Bernstein comments here, observing that “the Department of Education has no business dictating” a lower evidentiary “standard to universities nationwide.” FIRE’s Samantha Harris and Erica Goldberg also comment on the controversy.