Drain the swamp at the DOE Office for Civil Rights

From SAVE Services:

Since the release of the infamous Dear Colleague Letter in 2011, the federal government, through the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), has eliminated procedural protections. Through their guidance letters, OCR has made the campus disciplinary process unreliable, thereby undermining the seriousness of sexual assault allegations on our college campuses.

Now, with a new Secretary of Education, we have a chance to drain the swamp at the OCR and restore due process and fairness to campus procedures. This week, we are asking you to reach out to Secretary DeVos and urge her to make meaningful changes at the OCR. Some suggested requests:

Allow students to have active attorneys during their hearings;
Use justice centered investigations;
Raise the standard of proof to "clear and convincing"

You can contact the Secretary at her direct email:

Betsy.Devos@ed.gov
or
You can call the Department of Education at:
1-800-872-5327

Thank you for your continued support,
Jonathon P Andrews
Project Coordinator
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE)

If you're a man on college or university campuses this is something you should be very interested in. Your rights are on the line. If you're an 18 year old man about to go to a college or university then you want to support it too. Let's all support these changes.

Tell the Secretary of Education to rescind Dear Colleague and to support Gail Heriot for leadership of the Office for Civil Rights

From the National Coalition For Men:

ACTION ALERT from NCFM: Please help us. Earlier this week the "all college men are rapists" activists launched a telephone campaign to intimidate the new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos asking her to keep the Title IX witch hunt against male students in place. We need everyone that cares how college men are treated to call Secretary Betsy DeVos' office at 202-401-3000 and leave a message asking her to oppose Title IX in its current form. It is important that that the Dept. of Education hears from all of you. We want the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter rescinded and constitutional Due Process Rights restored to everyone attending school. Students and/or faculty should never be expelled based on unsubstantiated accusations of sexual misconduct. Please contact the Dept. of Ed's office ASAP to voice your concerns. Thank you for your support!

Also:

Tell Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to carefully consider the candidacy of professor Gail Heriot: Betsy.Devos@ed.gov

Let's kill two birds with one stone and ask her to take care of both. We can end the institutionalized misandry on our college and university campuses nationwide. Now is the time to act. You can contact DeVos by phone 202-401-3000 and/or email Betsy.Devos@ed.gov. The more of us they hear from the better so do it today.

Let's remind President Trump about men and our concerns

From a White House mailer:

Along with Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, President Trump created the United States-Canada Council for Advancement of Women Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders, to ensure that all Americans have ample opportunities in the workforce.

What about the men? Where do we fit in? Let's contact the President and ask him. Let's bring up our concerns and that we want them taken seriously. The more of us he hears from the better.

Equality is not enough

Support Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education

President Donald Trump’s pick for Education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has cleared the first hurdle in her confirmation process.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved DeVos on Tuesday afternoon in a 12-11 vote that fell along party lines.

Creative Commons/User Christopher Penn

Democrats had strongly opposed DeVos’ nomination during her Jan. 17 confirmation hearing. They pressed her on her extended family’s support of organizations that promote conversion therapy and whether she would support gun-free zones in schools. DeVos was mocked in the media for her answers to both questions, even though she denied supporting conversion therapy and her answer on gun-free zones revolved around the notion that a far-off federal bureaucracy might not be the best judge of the unique needs of individual schools.

DeVos was also questioned on campus sexual assault and the Obama administration’s guidance documents that require schools to more forcefully adjudicate accusations with almost no ability for accused students to defend themselves. DeVos wouldn’t commit to upholding Obama-era guidance documents, stating that she would ensure the law is carried out in a way that protects accusers and the rights of the accused.

This, naturally, didn’t sit well with Democrats and activists, who argue that guaranteeing due process for accused students is tantamount to harming accusers.

In opposing DeVos, those against due process rights and school choice (which DeVos strongly supports), created the hashtag “Dump DeVos,” hoping to influence senators. It only worked on Democrats, who were already going to oppose Trump’s nominee.

DeVos’ nomination now moves to the full Senate. Republicans are in the majority, but two GOP members who supported her in committee — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — have not committed to voting to confirm her on the Senate floor.

Source

We don't usually speak up for women here but this time we will make an exception. This woman has donated and support FIRE which is looking out for falsely accused male students on college and university campuses nationwide. She favors due process rights for the accused male student. That is very fair. I say we support Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education by contacting our Senators and letting them know to support her Secretary of Education. The more of us they hear from the better.

Mississippi burning

Mississippi State Representative Angela Cockerham
Legislation that would add a contentious Obama administration mandates on campus sexual assault procedures to Mississippi law is still alive in the state Legislature, even if they are tottering at the Department of Education.

The bill was approved Tuesday by the House Judiciary B Committee and is already on the House calendar.

The measure, sponsored by state Rep. Angela Cockerham, D-Magnolia, would require the state institutions of higher learning to implement a comprehensive policy toward allegations of sexual violence, domestic violence and stalking that goes a step beyond one proposed by the federal government in 2011.

SPONSOR: Mississippi state Rep. Angela Cockerham wants to enshrine in Mississippi law controversial federal mandates on campus sexual assault cases.

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights said in its 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter that under Title IX — which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity — that universities and colleges are to use a “preponderance of evidence” standard to adjudicate claims of sexual violence, a much lower standard than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of proof used in criminal courts.

The “preponderance” standard means that campus adjudicators just have to be 50.01 percent sure that an assault took place.

Critics say the policy has reduced due process rights for the accused and compromised the impartiality of investigators. It also restricts an accused’s right to counsel and doesn’t require that the accuser be present at a hearing.

Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, recently wrote of the Mississippi bill:

“Legislators should keep in mind that procedures that are unfair to the accused actually harm the long-term interests of victims of sexual assault, because they damage the credibility of campus proceedings and diminish public confidence in their results. FIRE hopes the legislature will rethink the bill and either replace its problematic provisions with language that reflects the rights of all students or abandon the bill altogether.”

FIRE noted several instances in which the bill is unfair to the accused beyond the low standard of evidence. The bill refers to accusers as “survivors” throughout, creating a bias against the accused right from the beginning. To be a “survivor,” one must have survived something, making a false or exaggerated accusation determination impossible.

The bill provides students little chance to cross-examine their accuser, and can only submit questions to the campus fact-finder, who has discretion in which questions to ask. The bill also would not allow accused students to be represented by an attorney. Since anything they say in a campus investigation and hearing can be used against them in criminal court, not letting an attorney speak for them puts them in potential danger further down the road.

Accusers, under the Mississippi bill, would also have access to resources the accused would not, such as psychological help.

The bill insists that schools use “trauma-informed” or “victim-centered” investigative techniques. In practice, in college sexual assault cases these techniques have been used to make it impossible for an accuser’s story not to be deemed truthful by insisting that inconsistencies and vagueness are proof of trauma.

Jameson Taylor, vice president for policy at the conservative Mississippi Center for Public Policy, said new guidance from the Trump administration will likely supersede the Obama directive.

“They (the Obama administration) took these Title IX requirements for campus rape and drove a truck through that,” Taylor said. “It’s ironic that Mississippi is trying to enshrine into law a very questionable federal policy that is about to get rescinded.”

A lawsuit was filed in June challenging the legality of the lower evidentiary standard and lack of due process protections promulgated by the 2011 federal mandate.

Beyond the lawsuit, U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., has been a thorn in the side of OCR after asking questions as to why the 2011 guidance document avoided public scrutiny. The original Obama-era directive is considered by critics to be invalid because it did not go through the proper notice-and-comment period required by the Administrative Procedures Act.

If the Mississippi bill is enacted, it would be the only state in the union required to use the lower standard of evidence if the Obama-era guidance is rescinded.

Source

If this bill becomes law a lot of young men are going to get hurt. If you live in Mississippi in Cockerham's district then her you don't like this bill because of its misandry. Even if you don't live in her district or Mississippi let her know that we won't put it with it. Contact info: (601)783-4979 or acockerham@house.ms.gov The more of us they hear from the better.

Arkansas gives men a choice when it comes to childbirth

WASHINGTON― A new law in Arkansas bans most second trimester abortions and allows a woman’s husband to sue the doctor for civil damages or “injunctive relief,” which would block the woman from having the procedure.

The “Unborn Child Protection From Dismemberment Abortion Act,” signed into law last week by Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), bans dilation and evacuation procedures, in which the physician removes the fetus from the womb with surgical tools. D&E procedures are the safest and most common way women can end their pregnancies after 14 weeks of gestation, according to the American Medical Association.

A clause buried in the legislation states that the husband of a woman seeking an abortion, if he is the baby’s father, can file a civil lawsuit against the physician for monetary damages or injunctive relief ― a court order that would prevent the doctor from going ahead with the procedure. The woman’s parents or legal guardians can also sue, if she is a minor. The law states that the husband cannot sue the doctor for money in cases of “criminal conduct” against his wife ― namely, spousal rape ― but he could still sue to block her from having the abortion.

State Rep. Andy Mayberry (R), who co-sponsored the bill, told The Daily Beast, “We’ve tried to account for all the worst case scenarios.”

“They created a whole new right ― the right of a husband or family member to sue a doctor on behalf of an adult patient,” said Holly Dickson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas. “I cannot begin to tell you what the intent was, but we have raised concerns about that provision and the entire rest of the bill, which is unconstitutional.”

The ACLU of Arkansas plans to challenge the abortion law in court before it goes into effect this summer. Six other states have passed nearly identical laws, and in all four states where the law was challenged ― Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia ― it was struck down by the courts. The Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade protects a woman’s right to have an abortion up until the fetus would be viable outside the womb, around 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Source