Princeton University faculty on Monday voted to alter the school's sexual misconduct policies, lessening the burden of evidence needed to find a student guilty, the school announced Monday night.

The changes comes amid a federal probe into how the Ivy League school handles sexual misconduct and outcries from many college students and lawmakers about sexual assault on college campuses nationwide.

The new policy was first recommended in an e-mail earlier this month from the Princeton faculty's policy committee to all faculty members. The e-mail said that Princeton officials had been informed by the Office of Civil Rights that changes to the school's sexual misconduct policies were necessary in order for the school to comply with Title IX, a federal statute covering gender discrimination.

The committee's recommendations were expected to pass after the university president, Christopher Eisgruber, endorsed them.

"It became clear that we needed to modify our sexual misconduct policies and procedures to become fully compliant with current Title IX requirements, and that in the interest of fairness to all members of our community we should make these changes as promptly as possible," he said in a statement earlier this month.