Trump Overhaul of Campus Sex Assault Rules Wins Surprising Support. The new approach finds unlikely allies among some feminist scholars

New York Times ^ | June 25, 2020 | Michael Powell

[karpov]

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos fired a shot last month in the nation’s culture wars, overhauling how colleges handle investigations of sexual assault and ending what she called Obama-era “kangaroo courts” on campus.

The new Education Department rules give more protections to the accused, primarily young men who face discipline or expulsion as a result of allegations of sexual misconduct.

The move set off a liberal uproar, denounced by unions representing teachers and college professors, by the National Organization for Women and by an array of Democratic senators. The Trump rules, they said, constitute a radical rollback of protections for victims who seek justice after sexual assaults.

But Ms. DeVos’s actions won praise from a surprising audience: an influential group of feminist legal scholars who applauded the administration for repairing what they viewed as unconscionable breaches in the rights of the accused.

“The new system is vastly better and fairer,” said Prof. Janet Halley, who specializes in gender and sexuality at Harvard Law School. “The fact that we’re getting good things from the Trump administration is confusing, but isn’t it better than an unbroken avalanche of bad things?”

There are few more contested cultural battlegrounds than college campuses and the rules that govern sexual misconduct and due process, and thorny questions of how to define sexual consent.

Most often this battle is framed as Left versus Right, feminist against traditionalist. But that is to miss a fierce and complicated struggle within feminist and liberal circles. Several colleagues who teach and write on gender and the law have joined Professor Halley in donning the cloth of heretics.

“I’m a feminist, but I’m also a defense attorney who recognizes the importance of due process,” said Prof. Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge and lecturer in law at Harvard, who opposed the Obama-era rules.

[dsc]

“isn’t it better than an unbroken avalanche of bad things?”

Probably just means the hallucinations are easing up. Maybe you’ll be in touch with reality soon.

[PGR88]

People wonder why politics is so nasty and contentious now

Its because Fed.gov literally controls everything. Fed.gov even adjudicates how rape cases are handled on college campuses. Thus our political environment has become Octavian vs. Marc Antony.

[MrChips]

DeVos did a very good thing for men on college campuses. It was a badly needed change.

[Shark Ranger]

And women.

All of those falsely accused men victimized by “mattress feminist“ and others have mothers.

[MrChips]

Well, it was good for everyone. No more double standard.