Rights groups sue DeVos over changing campus sexual assault policy

by Morgan Gstalter - 01/25/18 4:59 PM ET

Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Education Department and its head, Betsy DeVos, over the department’s decision to rescind guidelines for how colleges and universities handle sexual assault allegations.

SurvJustice, Equal Rights Advocates and Victim Rights Law Center filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, according to a court filing shared by one of the groups.

The complaint alleges that DeVos’s new guidances are built on “unfounded generalizations about women and girls, particularly their credibility regarding reported experiences of sexual harassment, including sexual violence.”

DeVos rolled back Obama-era guidances in September, in what she described as an effort to better protect both victims and students who have been accused of sexual violence.

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DeVos said she was replacing the standard because it hurt students who were not given the right to due process.

“There’ve been too many students wronged in a well-intentioned attempt to ensure that this issue is not swept under the rug and not hidden in back rooms of schools any longer,” DeVos said in September.

Updated at 5:10 p.m.

Tags Betsy DeVos campus sexual assault Department of Education Department of Education sexual assault survivors Title IX