Two Excellent Letters on an Excellent Op-ed on Title IX

National Review cites CEI`s Hans Bader`s letter on the an op-ed on unconstitutional speech codes:

On June 8, the Wall Street Journal ran an excellent op-ed by Jessica Gavora on the way Title IX has been transformed into a political weapon against men on American campuses. Yesterday’s paper ran two sharp letters commenting on her piece. … The second by Hans Bader, an attorney with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who regularly writes about the perverse actions taken by Department of Education bureaucrats. …

“Ms. Gavora rightly criticizes the Education Department, where I used to work, for pressuring colleges to adopt unconstitutional speech codes in the name of fighting sexual harassment. It has disregarded many court rulings in doing so.

For example, the Education Department has wrongly ordered schools to regulate off-campus speech and conduct. That contributed to the harassment charges against Prof. Laura Kipnis, who was accused over a politically incorrect essay she wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education and statements she made on Twitter. Court rulings like Roe v. Saint Louis University (2014) reject Title IX claims over off-campus conduct, but the Education Department ignores them. It also ignores court rulings like Klein v. Smith (1986) emphasizing that the First Amendment usually bars public schools from restricting off-campus speech.

For example, the Education Department told schools to regulate comments “on the Internet” in an October 2010 letter. In 2014, it demanded that Harvard regulate off-campus conduct more. The Education Department has also ignored the Supreme Court’s statement that speech in school must be “severe,” not just “pervasive,” to constitute “sexual harassment.”