As soon as the U.S. Department of Education revealed its final guidelines on how colleges and universities should adjudicate allegations of sexual assault, Democrats kicked into high gear to try and stop the rules from going into effect.
At issue is the fact that the new rules require schools to provide accused students some basic due process rights – like the specific allegations against them, the ability to cross-examine the evidence and witnesses against them, and access to the evidence against them prior to the hearing – which modern activists claim hurt victims. These same activists, including prominent Democrats such as presumptive 2020 nominee Joe Biden, claim we must “believe women” – except those who accuse Democrats.
When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revealed the final rules in May, the attorneys general in numerous Blue States filed a lawsuit against the Department in an attempt to block the new rules from being implemented in the hopes that Biden wins the election and will stop the rules altogether. Should this happen, colleges and universities will continue to deny accused students constitutional due process rights, destroying futures and inviting hundreds more lawsuits.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, Red State attorneys general filed their own brief defending the new regulations. The new rule, the AGs wrote, “requires educational institutions to investigate and, where proved, punish allegations of sufficiently severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive sexual harassment. It also provides a needed framework, consistent with long-standing Supreme Court precedent, that protects the foundational constitutional rights of due process and speech.”
Last week, a federal judge in New York denied a move by state school boards who tried to block the new rules. U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl wrote that the new rules don’t harm accusers.
“Rather than harming students, the Rule has the potential to benefit both complainants and respondents by providing procedural guidance for grievance procedures,” Koeltl wrote. “This process helps not only respondents but also complainants who are given greater assurance that if they prevail in the grievance proceeding, that result will not be overturned because the process did not comply with due process.”
The new rules still face other lawsuits – including the one from Blue State AGs – attempting to block them in the hopes Biden will drop them outright when he takes office. Koeltl’s decision, however, may inform other judge’s deciding such cases.
On August 10, legal researcher Jake G. tweeted that the Education Department requested a 15-day extension to file their response to the AG’s lawsuit. The extension would move the due date from August 14 to August 30, but would not affect the date the new rules would take effect, which would still be August 14. As Jake explained, “the only foreseeable scenario where the August 14th effective date would be pushed back is if the DC court handling the AG v [DeVos] case issued the requested Preliminary Injunction.”
The AGs argued that schools did not have time to implement and comply with the new rules due to the coronavirus pandemic, yet numerous colleges and universities, including some Ivy League schools, have announced they had updated their rules in time despite the outbreak.