Under the Obama administration, the Department of Education (DOE) pushed the "rape culture" narrative — that one quarter of women would be raped or sexually assaulted on college campuses, and that colleges could not trust the police to handle these crimes. This created a perverse system of campus tribunals which denied due process rights to (mostly) men accused of sexual assault.
On Friday, The New York Times reported on an internal memo published by Propublica showing the Trump administration's first steps in overhauling this "sex bureaucracy." The Times interpreted the move as "scaling back investigations into civil rights violations at the nation's public schools and universities."
The memo, written by Candice Jackson, the acting head of the DOE's Office of Civil Rights (OCR), reversed one part of the Obama administration's campus sexual assault policies, but it is an important first step in reforming the system. Under Obama, OCR investigated colleges when women accusers claimed the colleges were too lax on the men they accused of sexual assault.
"Whenever they had an allegation by some student that her Title IX rights had been violated by a college, they would not only look into the particulars of her complaint and fault the college for not giving her what she wanted, but they would launch a systematic investigation going back for years," Stuart Taylor, co-author of the book The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America's Universities, told PJ Media.
"They would even pressure the colleges to retry accused males who had been found innocent before, exposing these guys to double jeopardy," Taylor added.
In other words, when a woman complained to OCR that her college was not penalizing the man she accused of rape or sexual assault, OCR wouldn't just investigate her case (assuming that the accused man was guilty). The office would also delve into the college's past, attempting to find previous cases where the school was too easy on accused students.
This practice demonstrated the "rape culture" narrative's insistence on over-exaggerating the likelihood of sexual assault on campus, and pushing the idea that every woman who accuses a man of sexual assault should receive the benefit of the doubt. In fact, almost nine out of ten colleges reported zero sexual assaults in 2015.
This policy was "based on a false assumption that [sexual assault] is widespread in the colleges," Taylor explained. "I frankly doubt that there's more than a handful of colleges across the United States that have systematically discriminated against accusers." His book is full of examples of colleges discriminating against the accused.
The Federal Government's Sexual Reign of Terror on College Campuses
Launching such wide-ranging investigations into a college's past wastes time and precious resources, the author argued. "It diverts resources into university-wide fishing expeditions that are probably a waste of everybody's time at best from cases where there really are big problems."
Taylor argued that these groundless in-depth investigations made it harder for the OCR and for colleges to deal with cases rightly, making it less likely that genuine victims of sexual assault are vindicated. He praised Jackson's memo as trimming this practice so the OCR can focus on more important cases.
"It will work a lot more efficiently for any genuine victims of sexual assault once you do away with using any complaint as a pretext to try to establish broad federal oversight over any university they can get their hands on," Taylor explained.
But the Times also reported a second aspect of the memo — these long-term investigations had reportedly uncovered evidence of racial discrimination in terms of discipline. A DOE investigation found the schools with higher percentages of black students established stricter discipline, and that black students received discipline more than white students.
Taylor attacked this as a red herring on the issue of sexual assault tribunals. In fact, "there is evidence that black men are being disproportionately accused" of sexual assault, he argued. This means less pressure from the OCR on colleges to push rape culture tribunals would actually help black people.
Furthermore, there are reasons that black students tend to receive more punishment in schools than white students, and it's often for the benefit of the other black students.
"My impression is that the Obama administration was under the OCR imposing racial quotas on school discipline on the basis that if black students are more likely to get suspended than white students that must mean they are discriminating against the black students," Taylor explained.
The author attacked this as "a terrible abuse of federal power," because "there is not much evidence of real discrimination." Instead, "there is evidence of disproportionate disruption."
Indeed, Heather Mac Donald, author of The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe, has presented evidence that violent criminals are disproportionately black, so it stands to reason that a disproportionate amount of school disruption may be caused by black students.
But ironically, it may be the good black students who benefit most from the disciplining of disruptive students. "A lot of the kids are in mostly black or all black schools," Taylor argued. "When you put pressure on the school district to keep the disruptive students in class, it's probably destroying opportunities for other blacks to learn."
Where Black Lives Don't Matter — Campus "Rape Culture" Tribunals
So this new memo, far from undermining the DOE and OCR's dedication to civil rights, arguably bolsters that dedication and helps black students — both those disproportionately accused of sexual assault, and those hampered by disruptions in the classroom.
But the day after the memo was published, a former Obama administration official launched a two-year investigation into the DOE and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The investigation attacked DeVos' "repeated refusal in Congressional testimony and other public statements to commit that the department would enforce federal civil rights laws."
Catherine Lhamon,head of the OCR under Obama and now chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, launched the investigation Friday. "I think this is more evidence that Catharine Lhamon is a blinkered ideologue who is all about Left-wing propaganda," Taylor quipped.
"It doesn't surprise me that she's abusing her powers again," the author said. "Based on the public record, I'm not surprised to see her doing something manifestly unreasonable."
Even The New York Times reported DeVos' clear denunciations of discrimination in any form, but warned that "she also believes in a limited federal role in education." As Taylor explained, restraining OCR after the Obama administration's overreach would be a very good thing.
"Not only should the new administration throw out everything the Obama administration had done on the campus rape front, it should also try to undo some of the harm the administration had left in place," the author argued.
Following terrifying stories of accused men being denied the ability to defend themselves, Taylor suggested that the DOE launch "a regulatory proceeding to accumulate evidence that a lot of colleges are now systematically discriminating against males in violation of Title IX in prosecution of campus sexual assault."
Title IX bars discrimination on the basis of sex. It was passed in 1972 to protect women, but after the clear bias against men accused of sexual assault, it should arguably be employed to protect these men.
Judge Rejects "Traumatizing" Deposition that Might Exonerate Amherst Student Expelled for Sexual Assault
"The Obama administration was grotesquely biased against the accused," Taylor noted, who are disproportionately male. While the OCR did not run the campus rape tribunals — which are handled internally by colleges and universities, at the request of the Obama DOE's 2011 "dear colleague" letter — this memo might relieve some of the pressure colleges feel to unfairly prosecute accused men.
"One reason the colleges have been so frenzied about destroying due process for all accused males is that they're afraid the federal government is going to hit them if they're fair," Taylor explained. This memo is the first step in relieving that pressure.
"This is a very good move, and I think it's a sign that more moves are to come," the author concluded.
Given the immediate attack from Lhamon, however, DeVos and Jackson have their work cut out for them. The Trump administration should expect to run into even more stonewalling from Democrats and Obama holdover liberals as it fights to right the wrongs committed under Obama. No one said this was going to be easy.
Source
Showing posts with label Catherine Lhamon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catherine Lhamon. Show all posts
Friday, June 30, 2017
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
CSU student sues DOE for gender discrimination
A former Colorado State athlete who was suspended for sexual assault last fall is now suing the United States government for gender discrimination, while alleging that the Department of Education’s sexual assault guidance violates federal laws, therefore suggesting that every campus sex assault case decided under that guidance could be overturned.
According to the lawsuit, Grant Neal, a sophomore at Colorado State University-Pueblo (CSU-Pueblo) who played football and wrestled at the school, had consensual sexual intercourse with a female classmate, who is not named in the lawsuit, last October. The next day, a peer of that woman, who is also not named, reported to the school that Neal had raped the woman.
In December, after investigating, the school found that Neal was more than likely responsible for sexual misconduct—the standard that the federal Department of Education tells schools to use—and suspended him for as long as the alleged victim remained at the school. The woman said he never raped her, according to the lawsuit.
After the ruling, Neal apparently lost athletic scholarships and has found that no other school will admit him. His suspension had critics, and a petition for the university to overturn it has nearly 2,000 supporters.
The lawsuit names the university and several school officials, including its president, as defendants, and notably also includes the U.S., the Department of Education and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), as well as Secretary of Education John King Jr. and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon—a first in such cases by male students accused of sexual assault, according to legal experts.
The basis for the lawsuit is the OCR’s controversial “Dear Colleague” letter, which it issued to colleges and universities in 2011. The letter stated that sexual violence at schools falls under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education settings. The OCR offered guidance for how schools should handle sexual assault and violence cases. It also said those that mishandle them would be in violation of Title IX and could lose federal funding.
Advocates for male respondents in campus sexual assault cases say the 2011 guidance led to an overcorrection on the issue in a way that discriminates against young men, is inherently anti-male and denies them due process. Neal’s lawsuit alleges that the OCR’s guidance violates the law.
“We believe the ‘Dear Colleague’ letter issued by the U.S. Department of Education is illegal and unconstitutional,” Andrew Miltenberg, who represents Neal and has become a go-to lawyer for male respondents in sexual assault cases, tells Newsweek via email. “By essentially encouraging male gender bias, the Administration’s directive has violated Title IX and created a new class of victims on campus—accused male students who have had their right to due process stripped away.”
Male students accused of sexual assault are increasingly suing their schools, and especially since 2013, more of them are claiming Title IX discrimination—the same violation that female sexual assault complainants have made, alleging that schools mishandled their claims in a way that goes against their Title IX rights. Most of these so-called reverse-Title IX cases have been unsuccessful: In March, a judge dismissed a high-profile case against Columbia University by Paul Nungesser, the student who was the subject of classmate Emma Sulkowicz’s “mattress” art project and protest. Nungesser has until April 25 to file an updated complaint. Miltenberg represents him too and has said he plans to file.
However, a handful of these cases have recently survived motions to dismiss, including ones against Washington and Lee University, Brown University and Brandeis University.
Neal is suing for violations of Title IX and due process and breach of contract. He also alleges that the “Dear Colleague” letter violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which mandates a notice and review process for when the government issues a new rule. The lawsuit claims that the OCR issued “binding law” under the guise of “guidance” without following the APA procedures.
Such a violation, the lawsuit alleges, means the “Dear Colleague” letter and all disciplinary decisions made under it are “unconstitutional, arbitrary and void.” A ruling in favor of that claim might open any campus sexual assault decision a school made since 2011 to a challenge.
Hans Bader is a senior attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit public policy organization, who practices education law and previously worked as an attorney at the OCR. He points out that a footnote to the “Dear Colleague” letter says it does not add to existing law, and yet “it requires colleges to follow those letters to the T,” he asserts.
“Requiring schools to apply that as gospel when they essentially made it up out of nothing—that’s a plain violation of the APA because you have an entirely new legal obligation without notice and comment, without even the pretext of any real basis,” he says.
Several advocates for male respondents have recently vowed to take on the OCR. Last week, Families Advocating for Campus Equality, a due process advocacy organization led by mothers of male students accused of sexual misconduct, filed testimony with a Senate subcommittee opposing a federal proposal to increase the OCR’s funding by about 30 percent. “Approval of such a dramatic increase in OCR’s budget will only reward OCR for its much-criticized overreach,” the organization said.
And earlier this month, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonprofit that advocates for free speech and due process on campus, called for students to help challenge the OCR for the same “abuse of power” that the Neal lawsuit alleges. A FIRE spokesman says the Neal lawsuit is unrelated to the organization’s effort.
“When an administrative agency wants to promulgate a regulation that will force people to change their behavior in some way,” says Justin Dillon, an attorney who is working with FIRE on its effort, “the agency, No. 1, has to put out a notice that it’s thinking of taking this action, and No. 2, allow people to comment on this action, whether they’re for or against it.”
Those procedures, Dillon says, ensure that only federal employees with accountability to the voting public are the ones setting rules. “Agencies are not Congress. Agencies are unelected people,” he says. “The staff of the agency are just garden-variety federal employees with absolutely no democratic accountability. The idea is, you don’t want to have people who are not accountable to the voters basically making laws” without those review procedures.
Should a judge determine that the “Dear Colleague” letter is null and void, Dillon says, some “might argue that they have a right to reopen a case” under pre-2011 procedures—unless the ruling that vacates the letter only applies moving forward.
Dillon, who is not involved in Neal’s case, says he and FIRE are “very close to filing” their own lawsuit that makes a similar argument.
The OCR has been a defendant in at least one other lawsuit. In 2005, plaintiffs sued the OCR, alleging its investigation into a possible Title IX violation involving male and female high school hockey teams was flawed. A federal court judge dismissed the case in 2007.
A CSU-Pueblo spokeswoman declined to comment on pending litigation. A Department of Education spokesman declined to comment for the same reason.
As of April 13, the OCR is investigating 175 colleges for their handling of sexual violence cases.
“We’ve seen just a cataclysmic change around the country in terms of attention to the issue; responsiveness to it; and training, preparation for our students so that we can see safer campuses,” Lhamon, the civil rights assistant secretary, told Newsweek last year. She said the OCR had not yet rescinded funding from a school for mishandling a sexual violence claim but added, “I would absolutely be prepared to do it.”
Source
If this was me I would name the little fink who butted her nose in my business like she did and teach her a lesson. I hope he did just that.
According to the lawsuit, Grant Neal, a sophomore at Colorado State University-Pueblo (CSU-Pueblo) who played football and wrestled at the school, had consensual sexual intercourse with a female classmate, who is not named in the lawsuit, last October. The next day, a peer of that woman, who is also not named, reported to the school that Neal had raped the woman.
In December, after investigating, the school found that Neal was more than likely responsible for sexual misconduct—the standard that the federal Department of Education tells schools to use—and suspended him for as long as the alleged victim remained at the school. The woman said he never raped her, according to the lawsuit.
After the ruling, Neal apparently lost athletic scholarships and has found that no other school will admit him. His suspension had critics, and a petition for the university to overturn it has nearly 2,000 supporters.
The lawsuit names the university and several school officials, including its president, as defendants, and notably also includes the U.S., the Department of Education and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), as well as Secretary of Education John King Jr. and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon—a first in such cases by male students accused of sexual assault, according to legal experts.
The basis for the lawsuit is the OCR’s controversial “Dear Colleague” letter, which it issued to colleges and universities in 2011. The letter stated that sexual violence at schools falls under Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education settings. The OCR offered guidance for how schools should handle sexual assault and violence cases. It also said those that mishandle them would be in violation of Title IX and could lose federal funding.
Advocates for male respondents in campus sexual assault cases say the 2011 guidance led to an overcorrection on the issue in a way that discriminates against young men, is inherently anti-male and denies them due process. Neal’s lawsuit alleges that the OCR’s guidance violates the law.
“We believe the ‘Dear Colleague’ letter issued by the U.S. Department of Education is illegal and unconstitutional,” Andrew Miltenberg, who represents Neal and has become a go-to lawyer for male respondents in sexual assault cases, tells Newsweek via email. “By essentially encouraging male gender bias, the Administration’s directive has violated Title IX and created a new class of victims on campus—accused male students who have had their right to due process stripped away.”
Male students accused of sexual assault are increasingly suing their schools, and especially since 2013, more of them are claiming Title IX discrimination—the same violation that female sexual assault complainants have made, alleging that schools mishandled their claims in a way that goes against their Title IX rights. Most of these so-called reverse-Title IX cases have been unsuccessful: In March, a judge dismissed a high-profile case against Columbia University by Paul Nungesser, the student who was the subject of classmate Emma Sulkowicz’s “mattress” art project and protest. Nungesser has until April 25 to file an updated complaint. Miltenberg represents him too and has said he plans to file.
However, a handful of these cases have recently survived motions to dismiss, including ones against Washington and Lee University, Brown University and Brandeis University.
Neal is suing for violations of Title IX and due process and breach of contract. He also alleges that the “Dear Colleague” letter violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which mandates a notice and review process for when the government issues a new rule. The lawsuit claims that the OCR issued “binding law” under the guise of “guidance” without following the APA procedures.
Such a violation, the lawsuit alleges, means the “Dear Colleague” letter and all disciplinary decisions made under it are “unconstitutional, arbitrary and void.” A ruling in favor of that claim might open any campus sexual assault decision a school made since 2011 to a challenge.
Hans Bader is a senior attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit public policy organization, who practices education law and previously worked as an attorney at the OCR. He points out that a footnote to the “Dear Colleague” letter says it does not add to existing law, and yet “it requires colleges to follow those letters to the T,” he asserts.
“Requiring schools to apply that as gospel when they essentially made it up out of nothing—that’s a plain violation of the APA because you have an entirely new legal obligation without notice and comment, without even the pretext of any real basis,” he says.
Several advocates for male respondents have recently vowed to take on the OCR. Last week, Families Advocating for Campus Equality, a due process advocacy organization led by mothers of male students accused of sexual misconduct, filed testimony with a Senate subcommittee opposing a federal proposal to increase the OCR’s funding by about 30 percent. “Approval of such a dramatic increase in OCR’s budget will only reward OCR for its much-criticized overreach,” the organization said.
And earlier this month, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonprofit that advocates for free speech and due process on campus, called for students to help challenge the OCR for the same “abuse of power” that the Neal lawsuit alleges. A FIRE spokesman says the Neal lawsuit is unrelated to the organization’s effort.
“When an administrative agency wants to promulgate a regulation that will force people to change their behavior in some way,” says Justin Dillon, an attorney who is working with FIRE on its effort, “the agency, No. 1, has to put out a notice that it’s thinking of taking this action, and No. 2, allow people to comment on this action, whether they’re for or against it.”
Those procedures, Dillon says, ensure that only federal employees with accountability to the voting public are the ones setting rules. “Agencies are not Congress. Agencies are unelected people,” he says. “The staff of the agency are just garden-variety federal employees with absolutely no democratic accountability. The idea is, you don’t want to have people who are not accountable to the voters basically making laws” without those review procedures.
Should a judge determine that the “Dear Colleague” letter is null and void, Dillon says, some “might argue that they have a right to reopen a case” under pre-2011 procedures—unless the ruling that vacates the letter only applies moving forward.
Dillon, who is not involved in Neal’s case, says he and FIRE are “very close to filing” their own lawsuit that makes a similar argument.
The OCR has been a defendant in at least one other lawsuit. In 2005, plaintiffs sued the OCR, alleging its investigation into a possible Title IX violation involving male and female high school hockey teams was flawed. A federal court judge dismissed the case in 2007.
A CSU-Pueblo spokeswoman declined to comment on pending litigation. A Department of Education spokesman declined to comment for the same reason.
As of April 13, the OCR is investigating 175 colleges for their handling of sexual violence cases.
“We’ve seen just a cataclysmic change around the country in terms of attention to the issue; responsiveness to it; and training, preparation for our students so that we can see safer campuses,” Lhamon, the civil rights assistant secretary, told Newsweek last year. She said the OCR had not yet rescinded funding from a school for mishandling a sexual violence claim but added, “I would absolutely be prepared to do it.”
Source
If this was me I would name the little fink who butted her nose in my business like she did and teach her a lesson. I hope he did just that.
Monday, April 25, 2016
The Georgia lawmaker taking on "dear colleauge" and the female bureaucrat who thought she was a queen
A Georgia lawmaker is suing the federal government on behalf of taxpayers for what he calls "illegal and unconstitutional directives" from the Education Department.
Republican State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, who chairs the influential Georgia House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education, filed the lawsuit along with his wife, alleging the federal government violated the Administrative Procedure Act when they issued a "guidance document" that included onerous new regulations for schools to follow. If schools fail to abide by the Department's Office for Civil Rights' ever-changing guidance, they risk losing federal funding.
Ehrhart has been a vocal critic of the Department's "Dear Colleague" letters, which began forcing colleges to spend more and more money to adjudicate felonies in 2011. In January, Ehrhart told school administrators: "If you don't protect the students of this state with due process, don't come looking for money." It was the strongest statement yet on the issue from a legislator.
In his lawsuit, Ehrhart claims the 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter imposed "unnecessary costs and expenses that flow directly to both Federal and Georgia Taxpayers, including Plaintiffs, under the threat of Federal funding being revoked for the schools' failure to comply."
"The illegal and unconstitutional directives issued in the Obama Administration's 'Dear Colleague' letter have resulted in a clear disregard for the due process rights of male college students and fostered an environment of male gender bias on campuses throughout the country," Ehrhart said in a press release. "As Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education, I have seen firsthand how colleges and universities, intimidated by [the Education Department's Office for Civil Right's] threat to their federal funding, have set up kangaroo court systems to comply with the Obama Administration's unconstitutional policies."
He added: "It is unacceptable that state and federal taxpayers in this country continue to fund these mandates and their attendant costs at higher education institutions."
The 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter demanded that schools adopt processes that make it easier to find accused students culpable without affording them much chance to defend themselves. Schools aren't required to allow them legal representation and lack subpoena power to obtain relevant evidence; and it's up to the schools what evidence is "relevant" or "exculpatory," meaning oftentimes accused students aren't made aware of evidence that could exonerate them.
It's all due to the Obama administration's agenda on looking tough when it comes to sexual assault. The belief that women are oppressed and victimized at large numbers in this country permeates the administration, and it has introduced policies that take self-reported, manipulated surveys as fact and eviscerates due process rights in pursuit of ending a non-existent "epidemic."
Ehrhart and his wife claim they have standing to sue as taxpayers of the state, who help fund the colleges and universities. The Ehrharts are also deeply concerned about the policies forced upon colleges because they have a son enrolled in the Georgia Institute of Technology, a school that has a horrendous track record on sexual misconduct accusations.
Ehrhart is represented by Andrew Miltenberg, Jeffrey Berkowitz and Tara Davis of Nesenoff Miltenberg Goddard Laskowitz, LLP and Jonathan Hawkins of Krevolin & Horst, LLC. Miltenberg is also representing a former Colorado State University-Pueblo student who was suspended for multiple years (essentially expelled) for sexual misconduct even though his alleged victim said she wasn't raped. The student in that case is also suing the Education Department.
"It is our hope that his case, together with the Grant Neal case (commenced earlier this week), have cornered the OCR, highlighting its abuses and providing a compelling narrative as we try to dismantle the OCR's continued assault on the rights of young men," Miltenberg told the Washington Examiner in an email.
Ehrhart told the Examiner that if he got the "right panel" on the Georgia court where his lawsuit was filed, "we could be in very good shape." And if they lose, he said, "we'll appeal. We'll take this right up to the Supreme Court."
Source
This is a man. Earl Ehrhart is perhaps one of the last of the men left in government. A brave man that is taking on the feminist juggernaut. Fine,we will stand beside him and let him know that there are men standing beside him. That we at the Men's Rights Blog stand with him and wish him the best as he rights this wrong and restores and gets justice for the wrongfully accused men whom this suggestion "dear colleague" has destroyed. In fact let's tell him ourselves: earl.ehrhart@house.ga.gov The more of us he hears from the better so let's let him know we appreciate what he is doing. After all he is doing this on our behalf as well so let's let him know today.
There is a second take on this story:
Georgia lawmaker sues Department of Ed officials for exceeding authority in campus rape rules
Greg Piper - Associate Editor •April 22, 2016
Our son could be ‘wrongly accused and found responsible’
The Department of Education and its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have harmed not only students but their parents and taxpayers by enforcing unlawful rules in campus sexual-misconduct investigations, according to a lawsuit by a Georgia lawmaker.
State Rep. Earl Ehrhart chairs the Georgia House subcommittee that controls the purse for the state’s public colleges and universities, and he has used his position to pressure schools to restore due-process rights, with some success.
But in the suit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Ehrhart and his wife Victoria spoke as parents of a son enrolled at Georgia Tech.
They have “heard countless stories of young men being accused, investigated, and subsequently expelled from Georgia colleges and universities without being provided appropriate due process protections,” owing to OCR’s 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter to colleges, the suit says.
They are “concerned that in the current regulatory climate” their son could, “like any other male college student, be wrongly accused and found responsible under the directives imposed by the Dear Colleague Letter.”
‘Imperative language’ means it is intended to be enforced
The Ehrharts’ lawsuit names Education Secretary John King and OCR chief Catherine Lhamon as defendants, as well as the agencies they lead and the United States government itself.
It was filed by the same lawyer, Andrew Miltenberg, who earlier this week sued Colorado State University-Pueblo on behalf of a male student who was functionally expelled for a sexual encounter that his partner has repeatedly said was not rape. That suit also named Department of Ed officials.
The core of the suit is that OCR did not follow the proper regulatory procedure in issuing substantive new rules, including the use of an “excessively low” evidence standard and the discouragement of cross-examination, while threatening the federal funding of schools that didn’t comply.
The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires a notice-and-comment rulemaking for any substantive rules, which are often marked by “imperative language” such as “must,” the suit says. It points to the repeated use of “should,” “must,” “requires” and “strongly” throughout the letter.
When OCR’s Lhamon was challenged on the letter’s legality by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. and chair of the Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee, she claimed the Dear Colleague was “interpretive” because the Title IX statute went through notice-and-comment 44 years ago, the suit says.
All decisions from the past five years are ‘arbitrary and void’
The Ehrharts are calling for “all disciplinary decisions arising” from the Dear Colleague letter – five years of misconduct findings from proceedings that were tailored to OCR’s demands – to be rendered “unconstitutional, arbitrary and void.”
The 2011 letter “was not, in practice or effect, a genuine guidance document” that carries no force of law, because it “coerced the schools’ compliance” with rules that were not implemented in the last rulemaking in 2001.
Because it set up “quasi-legal” proceedings that “violate many civil liberties,” the Dear Colleague has become “a highly divisive document, criticized by law professors, lawyers, educators, journalists, civil liberties groups and members of Congress,” the suit says.
The Ehrharts argued that the Department of Ed and OCR couldn’t avoid judicial review, as provided by the APA, by simply calling the Dear Colleague a guidance document.
The letter “is a final agency action in that it is the consummation of the agency’s decision-making and has been carried out as binding law since its adoption in 2011,” with “direct legal consequences” for institutions that do not comply.
The suit notes that Lhamon has repeatedly said in public settings that she expects colleges to follow the 2011 letter and “I will enforce” it – a threat made good when Tufts University “balked” at agreeing to an OCR finding that its policies suddenly violated Title IX in 2014.
Georgia taxpayers and academic programs are threatened
Those threats have forced all Georgia public colleges to create Title IX enforcement offices and hire personnel, costing them millions of dollars, to avoid the risk that their federal funding could be cut – with taxpayers hit and academic programs slashed as a result, the suit says.
It contrasts the multi-billion dollar endowments of Ivy League schools that have each hired dozens of Title IX staff in response to the Dear Colleague, with the endowments of Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia, which are “a shadow of their Ivy League peers.”
The suit notes Ehrhart’s own subcommittee hearings into how state schools handle sexual-misconduct investigations and says money can’t make students safer: The feds are demanding that colleges “micromanage the sex lives of students.”
The closest the suit gets to arguing that male students face inherent bias in post-Dear Colleague investigations – the core claim in lawyer Miltenberg’s CSU-Pueblo lawsuit – is its reference to the “rapid increase” in suits filed by students who were “wrongly disciplined.”
“Typically, these cases are brought by male students erroneously found responsible for sexual misconduct after being subjected to an arbitrary, biased and Kafkaesque investigation and adjudication,” it says.
Washington University Law Prof. John Banzhaf, who has called the 2011 Dear Colleague “unconstitutional,” said other states or municipalities could also challenge OCR in court by approving rules that contradict OCR’s, such as the right to cross-examination.
“Here it is not even clear that the [Title IX] statute authorized the Department of Education to have any involvement in the issue of rape complaints involving college students,” Banzhaf wrote in an email blast Thursday, “much less that it clearly intended to preempt any statutes individual states or municipalities might adopt. ”
Source
You know where this bitch came up with "dear colleague"? If it wasn't handed down to her then she reached as far up her ass as she could and pulled it out. It's not a law. It has no enforcement value yet she is acting like a smug little bitch about it. Let's see how smug she is with a congressional investigation looking up her ass. We'll see how smug she is then. Let's contact our Congressional representative and our Senators,especially Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator James Lankford. Let's teach this little bitch she can't just fuck with innocent men just because she feels like it.
Republican State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, who chairs the influential Georgia House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education, filed the lawsuit along with his wife, alleging the federal government violated the Administrative Procedure Act when they issued a "guidance document" that included onerous new regulations for schools to follow. If schools fail to abide by the Department's Office for Civil Rights' ever-changing guidance, they risk losing federal funding.
Ehrhart has been a vocal critic of the Department's "Dear Colleague" letters, which began forcing colleges to spend more and more money to adjudicate felonies in 2011. In January, Ehrhart told school administrators: "If you don't protect the students of this state with due process, don't come looking for money." It was the strongest statement yet on the issue from a legislator.
In his lawsuit, Ehrhart claims the 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter imposed "unnecessary costs and expenses that flow directly to both Federal and Georgia Taxpayers, including Plaintiffs, under the threat of Federal funding being revoked for the schools' failure to comply."
"The illegal and unconstitutional directives issued in the Obama Administration's 'Dear Colleague' letter have resulted in a clear disregard for the due process rights of male college students and fostered an environment of male gender bias on campuses throughout the country," Ehrhart said in a press release. "As Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education, I have seen firsthand how colleges and universities, intimidated by [the Education Department's Office for Civil Right's] threat to their federal funding, have set up kangaroo court systems to comply with the Obama Administration's unconstitutional policies."
He added: "It is unacceptable that state and federal taxpayers in this country continue to fund these mandates and their attendant costs at higher education institutions."
The 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter demanded that schools adopt processes that make it easier to find accused students culpable without affording them much chance to defend themselves. Schools aren't required to allow them legal representation and lack subpoena power to obtain relevant evidence; and it's up to the schools what evidence is "relevant" or "exculpatory," meaning oftentimes accused students aren't made aware of evidence that could exonerate them.
It's all due to the Obama administration's agenda on looking tough when it comes to sexual assault. The belief that women are oppressed and victimized at large numbers in this country permeates the administration, and it has introduced policies that take self-reported, manipulated surveys as fact and eviscerates due process rights in pursuit of ending a non-existent "epidemic."
Ehrhart and his wife claim they have standing to sue as taxpayers of the state, who help fund the colleges and universities. The Ehrharts are also deeply concerned about the policies forced upon colleges because they have a son enrolled in the Georgia Institute of Technology, a school that has a horrendous track record on sexual misconduct accusations.
Ehrhart is represented by Andrew Miltenberg, Jeffrey Berkowitz and Tara Davis of Nesenoff Miltenberg Goddard Laskowitz, LLP and Jonathan Hawkins of Krevolin & Horst, LLC. Miltenberg is also representing a former Colorado State University-Pueblo student who was suspended for multiple years (essentially expelled) for sexual misconduct even though his alleged victim said she wasn't raped. The student in that case is also suing the Education Department.
"It is our hope that his case, together with the Grant Neal case (commenced earlier this week), have cornered the OCR, highlighting its abuses and providing a compelling narrative as we try to dismantle the OCR's continued assault on the rights of young men," Miltenberg told the Washington Examiner in an email.
Ehrhart told the Examiner that if he got the "right panel" on the Georgia court where his lawsuit was filed, "we could be in very good shape." And if they lose, he said, "we'll appeal. We'll take this right up to the Supreme Court."
Source
This is a man. Earl Ehrhart is perhaps one of the last of the men left in government. A brave man that is taking on the feminist juggernaut. Fine,we will stand beside him and let him know that there are men standing beside him. That we at the Men's Rights Blog stand with him and wish him the best as he rights this wrong and restores and gets justice for the wrongfully accused men whom this suggestion "dear colleague" has destroyed. In fact let's tell him ourselves: earl.ehrhart@house.ga.gov The more of us he hears from the better so let's let him know we appreciate what he is doing. After all he is doing this on our behalf as well so let's let him know today.
There is a second take on this story:
Georgia lawmaker sues Department of Ed officials for exceeding authority in campus rape rules
Greg Piper - Associate Editor •April 22, 2016
Our son could be ‘wrongly accused and found responsible’
The Department of Education and its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have harmed not only students but their parents and taxpayers by enforcing unlawful rules in campus sexual-misconduct investigations, according to a lawsuit by a Georgia lawmaker.
State Rep. Earl Ehrhart chairs the Georgia House subcommittee that controls the purse for the state’s public colleges and universities, and he has used his position to pressure schools to restore due-process rights, with some success.
But in the suit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Ehrhart and his wife Victoria spoke as parents of a son enrolled at Georgia Tech.
They have “heard countless stories of young men being accused, investigated, and subsequently expelled from Georgia colleges and universities without being provided appropriate due process protections,” owing to OCR’s 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter to colleges, the suit says.
They are “concerned that in the current regulatory climate” their son could, “like any other male college student, be wrongly accused and found responsible under the directives imposed by the Dear Colleague Letter.”
‘Imperative language’ means it is intended to be enforced
The Ehrharts’ lawsuit names Education Secretary John King and OCR chief Catherine Lhamon as defendants, as well as the agencies they lead and the United States government itself.
It was filed by the same lawyer, Andrew Miltenberg, who earlier this week sued Colorado State University-Pueblo on behalf of a male student who was functionally expelled for a sexual encounter that his partner has repeatedly said was not rape. That suit also named Department of Ed officials.
The core of the suit is that OCR did not follow the proper regulatory procedure in issuing substantive new rules, including the use of an “excessively low” evidence standard and the discouragement of cross-examination, while threatening the federal funding of schools that didn’t comply.
The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires a notice-and-comment rulemaking for any substantive rules, which are often marked by “imperative language” such as “must,” the suit says. It points to the repeated use of “should,” “must,” “requires” and “strongly” throughout the letter.
When OCR’s Lhamon was challenged on the letter’s legality by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. and chair of the Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee, she claimed the Dear Colleague was “interpretive” because the Title IX statute went through notice-and-comment 44 years ago, the suit says.
All decisions from the past five years are ‘arbitrary and void’
The Ehrharts are calling for “all disciplinary decisions arising” from the Dear Colleague letter – five years of misconduct findings from proceedings that were tailored to OCR’s demands – to be rendered “unconstitutional, arbitrary and void.”
The 2011 letter “was not, in practice or effect, a genuine guidance document” that carries no force of law, because it “coerced the schools’ compliance” with rules that were not implemented in the last rulemaking in 2001.
Because it set up “quasi-legal” proceedings that “violate many civil liberties,” the Dear Colleague has become “a highly divisive document, criticized by law professors, lawyers, educators, journalists, civil liberties groups and members of Congress,” the suit says.
The Ehrharts argued that the Department of Ed and OCR couldn’t avoid judicial review, as provided by the APA, by simply calling the Dear Colleague a guidance document.
The letter “is a final agency action in that it is the consummation of the agency’s decision-making and has been carried out as binding law since its adoption in 2011,” with “direct legal consequences” for institutions that do not comply.
The suit notes that Lhamon has repeatedly said in public settings that she expects colleges to follow the 2011 letter and “I will enforce” it – a threat made good when Tufts University “balked” at agreeing to an OCR finding that its policies suddenly violated Title IX in 2014.
Georgia taxpayers and academic programs are threatened
Those threats have forced all Georgia public colleges to create Title IX enforcement offices and hire personnel, costing them millions of dollars, to avoid the risk that their federal funding could be cut – with taxpayers hit and academic programs slashed as a result, the suit says.
It contrasts the multi-billion dollar endowments of Ivy League schools that have each hired dozens of Title IX staff in response to the Dear Colleague, with the endowments of Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia, which are “a shadow of their Ivy League peers.”
The suit notes Ehrhart’s own subcommittee hearings into how state schools handle sexual-misconduct investigations and says money can’t make students safer: The feds are demanding that colleges “micromanage the sex lives of students.”
The closest the suit gets to arguing that male students face inherent bias in post-Dear Colleague investigations – the core claim in lawyer Miltenberg’s CSU-Pueblo lawsuit – is its reference to the “rapid increase” in suits filed by students who were “wrongly disciplined.”
“Typically, these cases are brought by male students erroneously found responsible for sexual misconduct after being subjected to an arbitrary, biased and Kafkaesque investigation and adjudication,” it says.
Washington University Law Prof. John Banzhaf, who has called the 2011 Dear Colleague “unconstitutional,” said other states or municipalities could also challenge OCR in court by approving rules that contradict OCR’s, such as the right to cross-examination.
“Here it is not even clear that the [Title IX] statute authorized the Department of Education to have any involvement in the issue of rape complaints involving college students,” Banzhaf wrote in an email blast Thursday, “much less that it clearly intended to preempt any statutes individual states or municipalities might adopt. ”
Source
You know where this bitch came up with "dear colleague"? If it wasn't handed down to her then she reached as far up her ass as she could and pulled it out. It's not a law. It has no enforcement value yet she is acting like a smug little bitch about it. Let's see how smug she is with a congressional investigation looking up her ass. We'll see how smug she is then. Let's contact our Congressional representative and our Senators,especially Senator Lamar Alexander and Senator James Lankford. Let's teach this little bitch she can't just fuck with innocent men just because she feels like it.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
The one,two combo
Let's do a one,two combo that results in a knockout. What I am referring to is telling select Senators the actions of Catherine Lhamon and the damage that she has caused this nation. Letting these Senators know that she has engage in criminal action. the more of us that do this the better.
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Thank Senator James Lankford for standing up to the Department Of Education femibullies
Senate chairman demands Department of Education ‘immediately rein in’ its Title IX ‘abuses’
Greg Piper - Associate Editor
March 7, 2016
Acting Secretary of Education John King, who could be confirmed to the post Wednesday, won’t be able to pacify Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., with tautologies.
In a letter Friday, the chairman of the Senate Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee dispensed with every argument by King’s underling at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), Catherine Lhamon, that Title IX gives the department the power to unilaterally issue broad new regulations related to harassment, bullying and sexual misconduct with no public rulemaking. (Read the footnotes in particular.)
Lankford minced no words with King:
I again call on you personally to clarify that these policies are not required by Title IX, but reflect only one of various ways schools may choose to develop and implement policies for the prevention and remedy of sexual harassment and sexual violence that best meet the needs of their students and are compliant with federal law. I further ask that you immediately rein in the regulatory abuses within the Department of Education and take measures to ensure that all existing and future guidance documents issued by your agency are clearly and firmly rooted in statutory authority.
The senator is greatly annoyed that the department keeps citing its own earlier guidance as justifying its later guidance.
RELATED: Department of Education official bizarrely claims it’s not threatening colleges in rape disputes
Regarding OCR’s 2010 Dear Colleague letter on sexual harassment and bullying, Lankford wrote King that the office improperly included examples of conduct that “can” violate Title IX – many of which are protected by the First Amendment – in and of themselves, not as one element of a “three-part test” as it has previously laid out:
But more importantly, regardless of however well-developed these citations to previous guidance documents are, they … do not have the force and effect of law, and therefore [cannot answer Lankford’s primary question] … What statutory or regulatory authority do you construe to arrive at the conclusion that Title IX requires that this proscribed conduct “can” be prohibited?
Lankford is also flabbergasted that OCR chief Lhamon thinks that “letters of findings” – her office’s settlements with colleges – justify its 2011 Dear Colleague letter that told colleges they must use the preponderance-of-evidence standard in sexual-misconduct proceedings in order to provide an “equitable resolution,” as required by Title IX:
[L]etters of findings carry no precedential value themselves and are a poor vehicle to alert regulated entities of new requirements … [These particular letters also] demonstrate that you have penalized those you regulate by enforcing standards never articulated by the Department and for which I question your authority.
In order for preponderance to be the only appropriate standard under Title IX, the statute would have to impose “strict liability” on colleges regardless of their response to sexual harassment or violence by students, which it doesn’t, Lankford said.
He noted that OCR “strongly discourages” schools from letting parties cross-examine each other, prohibits schools from letting accused students appeal unless their accusers get the same right, and even allows schools to make the same person the “fact-finder” and the “decision-maker” – all of which contradict “essential protections [that] defendants in a court of law enjoy”:
OCR’s silence on important due process considerations, coupled with the requirement of a lower standard of proof, indisputably tips the playing field against the accused, making the disciplinary process anything but “equitable.”
If OCR is really only telling colleges “its construction of the statutes and regulations” it enforces, it needs to cite actual statutes and regulations – not its own guidance and letters of findings, Lankford wrote.
Read the letter and excerpts from Lankford’s office.
Source
This is great. Finally lawmakers are standing up to these femibullies that enjoy pushing men around,stealing from them and depriving them of an education but leaving a black mark on their records that will haunt them throughout their professional and personal lives. Let's thank Senator James Lankford for standing up for college and university men accused of rape and for demanding due process be observed. Let's all thank him. The more of us he hears from the better. Click on email comment.
Greg Piper - Associate Editor
March 7, 2016
Acting Secretary of Education John King, who could be confirmed to the post Wednesday, won’t be able to pacify Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., with tautologies.
In a letter Friday, the chairman of the Senate Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee dispensed with every argument by King’s underling at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), Catherine Lhamon, that Title IX gives the department the power to unilaterally issue broad new regulations related to harassment, bullying and sexual misconduct with no public rulemaking. (Read the footnotes in particular.)
Lankford minced no words with King:
I again call on you personally to clarify that these policies are not required by Title IX, but reflect only one of various ways schools may choose to develop and implement policies for the prevention and remedy of sexual harassment and sexual violence that best meet the needs of their students and are compliant with federal law. I further ask that you immediately rein in the regulatory abuses within the Department of Education and take measures to ensure that all existing and future guidance documents issued by your agency are clearly and firmly rooted in statutory authority.
The senator is greatly annoyed that the department keeps citing its own earlier guidance as justifying its later guidance.
RELATED: Department of Education official bizarrely claims it’s not threatening colleges in rape disputes
Regarding OCR’s 2010 Dear Colleague letter on sexual harassment and bullying, Lankford wrote King that the office improperly included examples of conduct that “can” violate Title IX – many of which are protected by the First Amendment – in and of themselves, not as one element of a “three-part test” as it has previously laid out:
But more importantly, regardless of however well-developed these citations to previous guidance documents are, they … do not have the force and effect of law, and therefore [cannot answer Lankford’s primary question] … What statutory or regulatory authority do you construe to arrive at the conclusion that Title IX requires that this proscribed conduct “can” be prohibited?
Lankford is also flabbergasted that OCR chief Lhamon thinks that “letters of findings” – her office’s settlements with colleges – justify its 2011 Dear Colleague letter that told colleges they must use the preponderance-of-evidence standard in sexual-misconduct proceedings in order to provide an “equitable resolution,” as required by Title IX:
[L]etters of findings carry no precedential value themselves and are a poor vehicle to alert regulated entities of new requirements … [These particular letters also] demonstrate that you have penalized those you regulate by enforcing standards never articulated by the Department and for which I question your authority.
In order for preponderance to be the only appropriate standard under Title IX, the statute would have to impose “strict liability” on colleges regardless of their response to sexual harassment or violence by students, which it doesn’t, Lankford said.
He noted that OCR “strongly discourages” schools from letting parties cross-examine each other, prohibits schools from letting accused students appeal unless their accusers get the same right, and even allows schools to make the same person the “fact-finder” and the “decision-maker” – all of which contradict “essential protections [that] defendants in a court of law enjoy”:
OCR’s silence on important due process considerations, coupled with the requirement of a lower standard of proof, indisputably tips the playing field against the accused, making the disciplinary process anything but “equitable.”
If OCR is really only telling colleges “its construction of the statutes and regulations” it enforces, it needs to cite actual statutes and regulations – not its own guidance and letters of findings, Lankford wrote.
Read the letter and excerpts from Lankford’s office.
Source
This is great. Finally lawmakers are standing up to these femibullies that enjoy pushing men around,stealing from them and depriving them of an education but leaving a black mark on their records that will haunt them throughout their professional and personal lives. Let's thank Senator James Lankford for standing up for college and university men accused of rape and for demanding due process be observed. Let's all thank him. The more of us he hears from the better. Click on email comment.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Catherine Lhamon: the woman behind "Dear Colleague"
Glenn Reynolds: The unilateral war on college men
Glenn Harlan Reynolds 11:01 a.m. EDT September 30, 2015
An assistant secretary of education thinks she can rewrite rape law by writing a letter.
It appears to many — including me — as if the Obama administration is engaged in a war on college men. Using debunked statistics, the president, the vice president and various other political officials have falsely claimed that there’s an epidemic of rape on college campuses, even though campus rape is, in fact, falling, just as off-campus rape is. (And, in fact, rape is less common on campus than off).
And, ever since the Department of Education issued a ”Dear Colleague" letter to universities in 2011, in essence ordering them to adopt new and draconian campus “sexual assault” rules that treat accusations as presumptively true and force the accused — almost always men — to prove their innocence, sometimes even very strong evidence of innocence is ignored.
Spearheading this effort has been Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon, who has characterized the letter as binding on colleges and universities even though it is not a law, was not adopted as a formal or informal rule making after notice and comment under any law, and appears to have very little to do with the federal anti-discrimination law Title IX, which says only that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
Title IX was supposed to force colleges to admit women to programs formerly reserved for men. The law says nothing about sexual assault, sexual harassment, or the duty of universities to investigate criminal behavior on their own instead of referring crimes to law enforcement. But through a period of interpretation and reinterpretation, that simple statutory language has produced reams of federal paperwork that, in effect, turn a simple academic non-discrimination rule into a rape law that lacks the due process protections and evidentiary standards of actual rape law.
Now it appears that Congress has noticed. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., crashed a Senate hearing last week to grill Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education Amy McIntosh about past statements by Lhamon that purported to establish the “guidance” letter as binding law. How could this be binding, asked Sen. Alexander, when it’s simply a letter issued without any of the procedures required for administrative rule making?
McIntosh didn’t offer much of an answer, and that’s because there isn’t one. As some, including Ari Cohn, have argued for a while, the Department of Education is acting unlawfully here.
A law, to be binding, must pass both houses of Congress and be presented to the president's desk, where it must either pass into law or be vetoed and then overridden by a two-thirds vote of each house. Because this procedure, which the framers of our Constitution designed in order to make lawmaking difficult, turns out to make it difficult to pass laws, we also allow administrative agencies to issue regulations that are binding as law. But those regulations can be issued only after a draft is published and the public has a chance to comment, via either formal or informal rule making.
A mere letter from a bureaucrat, which is all the “Dear Colleague” letter is, has no binding authority. At most, it suggests that the bureaucrats might be willing to go to court to try to convince a judge that their interpretation of the statute is correct.
So why did colleges roll over? Law blogger Scott Greenfield suggests that it’s because the colleges are also warring against college men: “After all, why should a college risk the loss of its lifeblood (federal money) for the sake of protecting a few guys, particularly when the colleges pretty much agree with Lhamon’s progressive ideals?”
Greenfield notes that once Columbia University was sued by a male student claiming that his Title IX rights were violated because of the university’s response to a false accusation, it changed its mind and decided that Title IX didn’t create much in the way of student rights after all. Greenfield concludes: “Regardless of whether one embraces the policy choice embodied in Lhamon’s ‘Dear Colleague’ letters or not, there is no doubt but that it was imposed without lawful authority and adopted by schools who chose to sacrifice one segment of their student population to appease another segment. This is not the law. This is not what Title IX mandates. And they know it, even if you don’t.”
Greenfield is right. It’s nice that members of Congress are taking notice. But male college students and their parents, as well as alumni and trustees — and those women noticing that there’s a shortage of college-educated men all of a sudden — need to ask why there’s a war on college men, and why colleges, seemingly, are on the other side.
Source
There is no other way of saying it. This bitch needs to go to prison. She has deliberately fucked up men's lives. She needs to pay. The best way of doing that is to contact your Representative and Senators and tell them to send Lhamon to prison.
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