Gutting Title IX protections?

Or, perhaps, not.  I've looked up a number of articles on the (allegedly) proposed reforms of federal Title IX sexual assault guidance, and one thing that strikes me is that I'm not seeing any links to any federal documents written in the past year.  In other words, the New York Times, which broke the story, is carrying on its well established pattern of leaking to damage political enemies.  Who are those enemies?  Well, did you oppose Hilliary?  You're one of them.  The whole kerfuffle has its origins in a political hit job.


And what is that for?  Well, apparently it's to support the old Obama guidelines using preponderance of evidence as a standard of guilt, and also to prevent the accused from cross examining the accuser, among other things.  Proponents cite that preponderance of evidence (50% likelihood plus one iota) is used in civil cases (true), and that the accused can more or less cause the accuser to relive her rape.


Regarding the first, reality is that court after court is slapping college after college down for biased Title IX decisions--a result anyone could have foreseen--and the use of a civil law standard of guilt is dubious to begin with, given that a Title IX judgment does lock the accused out of further education at good colleges.  Want to create a group of mostly male, significantly minority victims who are reasonably intelligent and have very real grievances?  People who might act out those grievances in antisocial ways?  Keep that preponderance of evidence standard.  Want justice?  You might want to change.


Regarding the second, the simple fact is that a Title IX judgment is pretty much a criminal conviction in terms of its effects, and hence you've got to protect the accused's right to confront evidence against him, which would include accusers.  Worth noting as well is that defense lawyers (your other option, really) are not exactly renowned for their manners towards sexual assault victims, either.


Maybe instead of "filtering" the right to confront evidence, or abrogating it completely, we need to consider how we might create a few guidelines for "out of bounds" interrogation?  Maybe we need to work to prepare accusers to work--given that these are at their heart criminal accusations--within the system that can compel testimony and collect physical evidence?


As men wiser than I have commented, to every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, appealing, and wrong.  I do not know--not having seen the actual proposal--whether the DeVos proposal is an improvement overall or not.  I do know, however, that the guidelines in the 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter actually endanger victims by destroying trust in the system.  It's time for a good portion of them to go.