KangarooCourt.com
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Thursday an initiative to overhaul the Obama administration’s campus sexual-assault guidelines, accusing the “shameful” system of failing both the accused and accuser by creating what have been decried as “kangaroo courts.”
She said she would issue a public notice aimed at reforming the regulatory framework created by the department’s Office for Civil Rights in its 2011 Title IX guidance, which compelled universities to take a harder line on campus sexual assault or face a federal civil rights investigation.
“This unraveling of justice is shameful, it is wholly un-American, and it is anathema to the system of self-governance to which our Founders pledged their lives over 240 years ago,” Ms. DeVos said in a speech at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. “There must be a better way forward.”
She said the Obama administration “weaponized the Office for Civil Rights to work against schools and against students,” producing a system in which “unelected and unaccountable political appointees” have ruled from their desks by sending letters to universities.
“The era of ‘rule by letter’ is over,” she said. “Through intimidation and coercion, the failed system has clearly pushed schools to overreach.” ...
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