Trump admin. plans removal of Title IX campus sex assault rules

Betsy DeVos

It must be something in the Trump White House water supply that causes people there to think tearing down government programs without any suitable replacement is the way to go. This time, it’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos taking aim at the Title IX guidelines for dealing with campus sexual assaults:

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on Thursday announced that the Trump administration is rolling back sexual assault guidelines issued by former President Barack Obama’s administration.

“The system established by the prior administration has failed too many students,” DeVos said during a speech at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. “That’s why we must do better, because the current approach isn’t working.”

However while DeVos said the guidelines will be rolled back, she did not announce any new policies that would immediately be put in place to help combat sexual assault on college and university campuses across the country.

Because when something isn’t working perfectly, toss it out and don’t bother coming up with a better solution. After all, things always fix themselves, don’t they.

It’s true that the implementation and enforcement of Title IX rules is far from ideal – the aggressive approach towards investigating assault claims and the lowered standard of proof required to determine guilt has led to more than a handful of innocents painted as rapists, sometimes with horrific consequences. But those rules were still a step in the right direction towards combating a very real problem, and rectifying their flaws should be accomplished by improving the guidelines, not by throwing them out altogether and then hoping someone somewhere has a better idea.

Then again, coming from a ludicrously unqualified administrator working under an unrepentant sexual predator, this is probably the best we can expect.

(via @BadAstronomer)