ACLU Sues Sec. Devos Over New Guidelines That Bolster Due Process Rights

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Townhall article | https://archive.vn/Qrrmk
ACLU press release | https://archive.li/ttLf2
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From Townhall
Reagan McCarthy | Posted: May 15, 2020 11:30 AM

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a nonpartisan interest group that has historically supported individual rights, is suing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over her new Title IX reforms on college campuses. Just last week, Sec. Devos released the long-awaited reforms to Title IX; her changes represent a complete overhaul of the Obama-era guidelines for Title IX and sexual misconduct cases. The Obama administration’s Title IX policies were biased against the accused, essentially stripping those parties of due process, and created a bogus evidentiary standard for handling sexual assault and rape cases. The previous guidelines paved an avenue for accusers to wrongfully bring claims of sexual misconduct forward, be taken at face value without proper due process, and for the accused to be wrongfully punished.

The ACLU, an organization which claims to champion civil liberties, including due process and free speech, claims that Sec. Devos’s new guidelines for sexual harassment are not strict enough:
“The DeVos standard redefines what constitutes sexual harassment and assault in disturbing ways. It excuses schools from investigating reports of harassment and assault that take place off campus or school grounds, like at unofficial frat houses, at an apartment on the edge of the campus, or during a school’s own study abroad program.”
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The organization’s assessment completely misses the mark. Sec. Devos’s reforms to Title IX, with respect to harassment, bring much needed reforms to the Obama-era definition of sexual harassment. President Obama defined sexual harassment as “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” which allowed any unwanted speech to be deemed sexual harassment. Sec. Devos’s guidelines now mandate that any such conduct must be severely offensive to any reasonable person, which mirrors the Supreme Court’s 1999 ruling on harassment. Sec. Devos's Title IX overhaul also includes sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence under the definition of sexual harassment, as to codify such misconduct as illegal discrimination on the basis of sex.

The Obama administration’s loose framework led to cases adjudicated on campuses being later overturned in court, and actually undermined the severity of sexual harassment as a crime. Such a loose definition for deeming speech as harassment does a disservice to students who have actually been sexually harassed. Sec. Devos’s new regulation gets it right.

Most egregiously, the ACLU claims that Sec. Devos’s new guidelines create barriers to report sexual misconduct.
“Sexual harassment and assault have no place in our schools. Federal law imposes obligations on schools to make sure that’s the case. Students shouldn’t have to jump through hoops just to report abuse, and schools should not be allowed to ignore claims of discrimination on the basis of sex when they would have to respond to claims of discrimination on other protected grounds.”
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A basic understanding of the new regulations directly refutes the ACLU’s sanctimonious claim. Nowhere in the new guidelines does Sec. Devos’s ED allow for any such discrimination on the basis of sex, and as Sec. Devos has said repeatedly, sexual misconduct in any form has no place on college campuses.
"This new regulation requires schools to act in meaningful ways to support survivors of sexual misconduct, without sacrificing important safeguards to ensure a fair and transparent process. We can and must continue to fight sexual misconduct in our nation's schools, and this rule makes certain that fight continues," Sec. Devos said in an earlier release.
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The organization refers to Sec. Devos’s mandate that students report a claim to a Title IX official on campus, rather than any instructor or administrator. After this, if the student wishes, the process, and possible adjudication, will move forward. Such a procedure hardly constitutes a “hoop” to jump through.

The ACLU was once one of the most powerful organizations supporting civil liberties, but is now arguing against stronger protections for due process. Sec. Devos’s overhaul ensures that proper justice is carried out for both parties, and that basic civil liberties, including due process, are not compromised when institutions adjudicate these cases. Protecting basic agency for the accused under Title IX is not mutually exclusive with fair adjudication, nor do such protections impede on rights of the accuser. Sec. Devos's guidelines ensure that institutions practice judicial impartiality without compromising due process or free speech.
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Other coverage:
Washington Examiner, The Hill, NBC News, Commentary Mag,
 

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Remember when colleges were supposed to be one great big party of booze and promiscuous sex?

Now you can have your life ruined by a kangaroo court if you so much look at a fat chick with blue hair the wrong way.
 
Dom Cruise said:
Remember when colleges were supposed to be one great big party of booze and promiscuous sex?

Now you can have your life ruined by a kangaroo court if you so much look at a fat chick with blue hair the wrong way.
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Its not the ugly fat blue hairs but usually the good looking normal feminist ones doing this shit from what I have seen. The blue hairs are usually the advocates for this shit. Or there was even a uber crazy case with some USC kicker where he gets expelled for beating up his girlfriend but his girlfriend heavily denies it and the kicker still gets canned anyways.

On a side note, some of this stuff would be approved by the fundies or religous muslims, and these days there is an alliance between the two for some unknown reason when Muslim majority countries historically hate socialists and communists.
 
thismanlies said:
They bring up a good point here. Who will investigate sexual assault accusations that happen outside of the university's jurisdiction?

I propose we create an authoritative body comprised of individuals whom are extensively trained to deal with crimes like sexual assault. We'd have these organizations set up in every state, city, township, and rural area. They'd need a name that is instantly recognizable which would immediately project a sense of authority and order. I propose we call them the FUCKING POLICE. They would be an excellent organization to investigate crimes that happen outside of a college campus.
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Or, even better idea, they could do it *on campus* too, since they'll have the training and resources to do it.
 
Fucking with the ability to conduct blatantly egregious tribunals away from the public eye is a great first step.

This whole subject just pisses me off because the fixes are so simple. Sexual assault absolutely happens on campuses, a lot, but the fact that this is used as an excuse to neglect legal rights is something that has gone on for far too long.

I know that in fact, this is rare. Thousands of students funnel through major universities without incident but the fact remains that this is an abusive level of power given to vindictive activistic ideologues that are flooding university administeration to fuck over random targets for headlines. Simply asking them to provide full fledged court ready documentation is NOT an unreasonable request. If you wouldn't bring it in front of an impartial judge, then fuck off and come back later.
 
Hopefully one day our court systems will require evidence for sexual abuse cases, but I doubt it.

On August 11, 2014, Hayden was arrested and charged with molestation of a juvenile and aggravated crimes against nature. Hayden claimed that the allegations were false and made in retaliation by a vengeful ex-girlfriend, the 12-year-old girl's mother. He was subsequently charged with rape of a child based on the statements of the victim. Hayden was additionally accused of aggravated rape by his oldest daughter. She told police that she was raped 22 years before when she was 12 by her father, Hayden. She came forward after the allegations were made against Hayden. As a result of this last charge, his bail was raised from $200,000 to $350,000. In January 2015, he pleaded not guilty. In August 2015, the judge relieved Hayden's three private lawyers from the case per the lawyers' request. The lawyers said that confidential conditions for their representation hadn't been met, but that there was "no bitterness" between them and Hayden. Hayden was represented by a public defender at a later court date. On April 7, 2017, Hayden was convicted of two counts of aggravated rape and one count of forcible rape, of two girls over the course of two decades. On May 11, 2017, Hayden was sentenced to two life sentences (mandatory for aggravated rape), to run concurrently, plus 40 years, to run consecutively, in prison. He is not eligible for any parole, probation, or suspension of sentence, and will spend the rest of his life in custody. On July 12, 2017, after pleading no contest to the charges facing him, Hayden was sentenced by Livingston Parish Judge Robert Morrison to a third life sentence for rape. Morrison ordered that the new sentence shall run concurrently with Hayden's previously ordered sentences. Hayden has now been sentenced to three life sentences plus 40 years and was transferred to Louisiana State Penitentiary.

Based solely on the statements of the victim.
 
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I've always wondered what the reasoning was for letting colleges have their own police and seperate legal system was in the first place. They're colleges, not city states.
 
Krokodil Overdose said:
They started out as the legal defense arm of the CPUSA; like all communists, they're for civil rights for exactly as long as it's ideologically convenient.
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They actually used to defend civil liberties, though. Now it's just about letting everyone out of jail because it only cares about rights to not be in jail after a conviction that don't actually exist.

Somehow they've decided freedom from consequences is actually a thing.
 
thismanlies said:
They bring up a good point here. Who will investigate sexual assault accusations that happen outside of the university's jurisdiction?

I propose we create an authoritative body comprised of individuals whom are extensively trained to deal with crimes like sexual assault. We'd have these organizations set up in every state, city, township, and rural area. They'd need a name that is instantly recognizable which would immediately project a sense of authority and order. I propose we call them the FUCKING POLICE. They would be an excellent organization to investigate crimes that happen outside of a college campus.
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If we're going to spend all this fucking money on this "Police" of yours, maybe they can investigate allegations of crime that happen on college campuses too?
 
This complete contradiction stems from the ACLU being adherents to feminist legal theory.

Even though it makes no sense to oppose this(from a civil liberties stand point).

Rape and sexual assault is a form of social/legal currency. If you want something for women, you can wrap it around sexual assault.

If you make sexual assault more difficult to prosecute, it's not as useful of tool. The whole point of making sexual assaults/rape easier to prosecute has nothing to do to help victims. It's so it can be used as a hammer for political/social gains for women...

The ACLU is a mess because of this...
 
The ACLU in the past took a few token cases representing "bad" people in the defense of Civil Liberties, the mask has been slipping for years and in current year+5 most people can now see them for what they are. They never were an organization that respected Civil Liberty.

The hint is that they always held the position that the Second Amendment Right is a collective right. This interpretation of the Second is one of the confounding bouts of legal mental gymnastics that somehow turns the most direct and strictly worded protections of Rights into a repressive tool of the state. It only holds a sliver of legitimacy due to the sheer contempt the courts have against the Second Amendment Right and the decades of treating it as a second class right, refusing to apply it in full faith.

As an organization focusing on speech issues I think it would be fair for them to not take Second Amendment cases because they are not experts. However their position isn't "You have a right to use guns, we just don't take those cases, " it isn't "We take no position on the Second Amendment," it's actively "You have no Second Amendment Right. "

For a Civil Rights organization they have never been for all of them, just the ones they like. And now they show yet again, they don't actually care about rights.
 
kcbbq said:
They actually used to defend civil liberties, though. Now it's just about letting everyone out of jail because it only cares about rights to not be in jail after a conviction that don't actually exist.

Somehow they've decided freedom from consequences is actually a thing.
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Yeah, because of things like McCarthyism meant that you could be ideologically persecuted for being a communist. Now that it's the communists doing the ideological persecution, they know that it's their job to enable it as much as possible.
 
Ruin said:
He was his target was just misguided. Had he focused on Academia instead of Hollywood he would have found a shit ton of infiltrators.
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Considering the state of academia, the press, and Hollywood, it was what you might call a target-rich environment. Which is why they did everything in their power to destroy him and continue to smear his memory despite the fact that he's been absolutely vindicated since the fall of the USSR.
 
Bass said:
I've always wondered what the reasoning was for letting colleges have their own police and seperate legal system was in the first place. They're colleges, not city states.
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Becasue at the time of their founding, they were more established and of more modern infrastructure than the towns around them. When my State College was founded just prior to the US Civil War, the buildings on campus were taller than any of the homesteader cabins or farmhouses in "town", had stone and brick buildings well before the latter, and had paved roads, rail service, indoor plumbing and electricity when the latter didn't, often for decades. There's a famous picture of hogs wandering the lawn of the original Student Union building, and they weren't escapees from the University swine farm, they wandered over constantly from downtown which had only a split-rail fence marking the boundary between campus and a dirt-road main street where saloons and horse stables were ....

Essentially, the late 19th Century Universities WERE city-states: pockets of advanced urban development in places that otherwise had none. Densely-packed thousands ringed by a couple hundreds.

It's just that the laws that allowed them to establish their own police to cover them and keep the riff-raff from spilling in were never taken off the books when the average town caught up technologically to be able to provide police services.
 
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tehpope said:
How dare colleges cease having kangaroo courts that feed into the victim complexes of both the people who run them and the victims who use them.
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I swear I saw a story today about a disturbingly high number of universities having like a 2:1 ratio of "administrators" to "staff", which means "Critical Theory assholes that spun their basket-weaving degree into unearned positions of power" vs "people that actually teach classes."
 
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