The Education Department sent notice to K-12 schools and colleges on Friday that it would revert to policies put out during President Trump’s first term that limited schools’ liability in sexual misconduct cases and afforded stronger rights to students accused of sexual harassment and assault.
The letter also instructed schools not to expect the department to enforce a revised interpretation of Title IX, the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. That change, announced during the Biden administration, broadened the law’s scope to recognize harassment or exclusion based on sexual orientation and gender identity to be a form of discrimination.
The revised guidance issued Friday instructed educators to once again adopt new standards for enforcing codes against sexual violence and harassment on campus, a process they have had to undertake every four years as rules have whipsawed back and forth under the last four administrations.
The old rules, set in 2018, eased the standards by which the department assessed schools’ liability in sexual misconduct cases, giving schools room to follow different evidentiary standards and appeals processes in investigations. They also required schools to hold live hearings in which accusers and students accused of sexual assault could cross-examine one another, including through a lawyer.
In a break from recent changes surrounding the law, formally known as Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, the letter sent Friday stated that the changes in its implementations could begin immediately, after a federal judge in Kentucky blocked the Biden administration’s revisions from taking effect. That ruling was largely based on the Biden-era rules’ increased protections for transgender students, which the judge found to be unconstitutional.
The letter also leaned on Mr. Trump’s executive authority to justify the immediate return to the old standards, circumventing the more standard practice of proposing new regulations through a lengthy federal rule-making process. It stated that the employees in the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which enforces federal law across schools receiving federal funding, essentially answer to the president.
“As a constitutional matter, the president’s interpretation of the law governs because he alone controls and supervises subordinate officers who exercise discretionary executive power on his behalf,” it said. “That unified control extends to Ed and OCR; therefore, Title IX must be enforced consistent with President Trump’s order.”
Similar changes put forward under former President Barack Obama were also made informally through “dear colleague” letters like the one released on Friday, but informal guidance does not traditionally carry the force of law and can be easily overturned.
Students’ rights groups focused on due process celebrated the development as a restoration of fair standards for those accused of serious offenses.
“The return to the 2020 rules ensures that all students — whether they are the accused or the accuser — will receive fair treatment and important procedural safeguards,” Tyler Coward, a lead counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said in a statement. “That includes the right of both parties to have lawyers present during hearings, the right for both attorneys to cross-examine the other party and witnesses, and the right to receive all of the evidence in the institution’s possession.”
Critics of the rules, dating to Mr. Trump’s first term, have said the requirements for live hearings force victims to relive the trauma of sexual violence and give the schools they attend more room to ignore or informally resolve many serious infractions.
“This is an incredibly disappointing decision that will leave many survivors of sexual violence, LGBTQ+ students, and pregnant and parenting students without the accommodations critical to their ability to learn and attend class safely,” Emma Grasso Levine, a senior manager at Know Your IX, said in a statement. “Schools must step up to protect students in the absence of adequate federal guidance.”
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