September 25, 2017

An Open Letter:

We the People, who have spent years actually working to prevent and address sexual assault in schools, are deeply troubled that Secretary Betsy DeVos is putting the safety and lives of students at risk. On Friday, she continued her reckless campaign to destroy the laws and processes in place to protect students from sexual assault and allow all students an equal access to education. Her latest move – condemning and rescinding existing guidance documents on campus sexual assault, and replacing them with a poorly developed interim set of “Questions and Answers” – breeds chaos and uncertainty. Everyone on campus loses in the process.

Schools across our country – from universities to elementary schools – face very real and difficult challenges in meeting their obligations to prevent and address sexual assault. Students’ lives are at stake. So when students and school administrators asked for assistance, the Department of Education answered by issuing the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter on Sexual Violence and, in 2014, a set of Questions and Answers to respond to concerns raised by schools and students. The 2011 and 2014 Guidance did not make new law or change legal standards. Instead – drawing from dozens of investigations and reflecting the input of students, faculty, administrators, staff, attorneys, sexual assault response teams, counselors, student advocates, medical personnel, parents, law enforcement, prosecutors and campus police – they clarified both the protections afforded to students and schools’ accountability for addressing and preventing sexual assault under federal law.

Secretary DeVos is engaged in a dangerous effort to roll back, rather than improve, protections for all students. She has done little or no work to engage or understand sexual assault. For example, she points to a small handful of one-sided and cherry-picked anecdotes of how complaints of sexual assault have been improperly addressed on campus to justify rescinding the Guidance. Her justification doesn’t hold up: each of her anecdotes involve problems that arose because schools did not follow the Guidance –problems that could effectively be addressed by implementing, not scrapping, the Guidance.

Secretary DeVos continues to show callous disregard for the thousands of students who are subject to sexual violence and abuse every year. Instead, she is very clear that her main if not sole concern is the tiny number1 of students wrongfully found responsible for rape, without any evidence that this is a wholesale problem or extends beyond the few one-sided anecdotes she provides. And while she claims that the rights of the accused have not been fairly protected, the Guidance requires that campus policies and procedures be “adequate, reliable, impartial, and prompt and include the opportunity for both parties to present witnesses and other evidence.”

So what is her idea of fairness? Changing those policies and procedures to permit survivors to be cross-examined by their rapists. Limiting the right to appeal to accused students, thereby leaving survivors with no recourse on appeal. Giving schools an unlimited amount of time to resolve complaints of rape, even though that means many students will drop out of school in the meantime.

Secretary DeVos suggests that the Guidance was issued without public input and did not reflect the concerns of stakeholders. She is entirely wrong. What is true is that her new mandates on Friday came less than 36 hours after the public comment period closed on Department of Education guidance and regulations. She didn’t bother to consider the comments of hundreds of thousands of students, parents, and school personnel who asked that she leave the Guidance in place. Making matters worse, all of the reasons she gives for rescinding the Guidance are directly contradicted by what the Guidance actually says. We cannot help but wonder whether Secretary DeVos has even read the Guidance.

We the People have long worked to prevent and address sexual assault in schools. We have

conducted surveys to assess the challenges and needs of students and of schools. We have taken part in campus sexual assault proceedings as students, administrators, attorneys and counselors. We have conducted hundreds of interviews to determine how complaints of sexual assault are being addressed. We have addressed complaints raised by students accused of sexual assault. We have engaged with school administrators and law enforcement to understand what works, and what tools and resources need to be revised or developed. We worked with (and in) the federal government in developing the Guidance and in coordinating dozens of listening sessions and campus meetings to hear the concerns of stakeholders.

We the People rely on facts. The fact is that Secretary DeVos’s new interim guidance creates

ambiguity and chaos, not clarity and fairness. As a result, she has endangered the safety and lives of students in schools across the nation.

American Association of University Women

American Association of University Women, Sandhills/SP Branch

American Federation of Teachers

Atlanta Women for Equality

Black Women’s Blueprint

Boston Area Rape Crisis Center

Champion Women

Clearinghouse on Women’s Issues

Coalition of Labor Union Women

Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund

End Rape on Campus

The ERA Education Project

Equal Means Equal

Equal Rights Advocates

Equality North Carolina

Feminist Majority Foundation

Gender Justice

Girls for Gender Equity

Girls Inc.

Heroica Films

Human Rights Campaign

Jewish Women International

Know Your IX

Legal Momentum, The Women’s Legal Defense & Education Fund

Legal Voice

National Alliance for Partnerships

National Alliance to End Sexual Violence

National Center for Youth Law

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

National Coalition Against Violent Athletes

National Crittenton Foundation

National Disability Rights Network

National Education Association

National Organization for Women

National Organization for Women, Alexandria Chapter

National Organization for Women, Boulder Chapter

National Organization for Women, Brevard Chapter

National Organization for Women, California Chapter

National Organization for Women, Capital Area Missouri Chapter

National Organization for Women, Charlotte Chapter

National Organization for Women, Charlottesville Chapter

National Organization for Women, Columbia Area Chapter

National Organization for Women, Connecticut Chapter

National Organization for Women, Ft. Myers/Naples Chapter

National Organization for Women, Illinois Chapter

National Organization for Women, Maryland Chapter

National Organization for Women, Michigan Chapter

National Organization for Women, Mississippi Chapter

National Organization for Women, Missouri Chapter

National Organization for Women, Montana Chapter

National Organization for Women, New Jersey Chapter

National Organization for Women, North Carolina Chapter

National Organization for Women, Northern New Jersey Chapter

National Organization for Women, Oregon Chapter

National Organization for Women, Raleigh Chapter

National Organization for Women, SWPA Chapter

National Organization for Women, Thurston County Chapter

National Organization for Women, Triad Chapter

National Organization for Women, Young Feminists and Allies Chapter

National Resource Center on Domestic Violence

National Women’s Law Center

National Women’s Political Caucus

Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence

People for the American Way

Public Justice

Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law

Safety Advisors for Educational Campuses, LLC

SCOPE50

S.E.S.A.M.E., Inc.

Southwest Women’s Law Center

Stop Sexual Assault in Schools

SurvJustice

Texas Association Against Sexual Assault

Title IX Litigation Enforcement Group, Hutchinson Black and Cook, LLC : Lauren Groth,

Kimberly Hult, Christopher Ford, Baine Kerr, and John Clune

Women’s Law Project

Women’s Sports Foundation

YWCA-USA

The following individuals are listed with their affiliations for identification purposes only:

Gloria Allred, President of the Women’s Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund

Shana Becker, Organizer Women’s March on Raleigh

Kelly Behre, Director of Family Protection and Legal Assistance Clinic, UC Davis School of

Law

Caroline Bettinger-López, Director of Human Rights Clinic, University of Miami School of Law

and Former White House Advisor on Violence Against Women

*Anurima Bhargava, Former Chief of Educational Opportunities Section in the Department of

Justice’s Civil Rights Division (Primary Author)

Cindy Wolfe Boynton, President of NOW-CT

Lisa Brodoff, Associate Professor, Seattle University School of Law

Erin Buzuvis, Western New England University School of Law

Nancy Chi Cantalupo, Co-Author, Title IX & the Preponderance of the Evidence: A White Paper

Daniel Carter, Safety Advisors for Educational Campuses

David S. Cohen, Professor of Law, Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law

Seileach Corleigh, President of Missouri NOW

Regina Cowles, Boulder NOW

Michele Dauber, Stanford Law School

Maggie Davidson, National Organization for Women, Broward County Chapter

Sarah Deer, Professor, University of Kansas

Margaret Drew, Associate Professor of Law, University of Massachusetts Law School

Ellen Eardley, Former Assistant Vice Chancellor for Civil Rights & Title IX at the University of

Missouri

April Emmert-Maguire

Ellen Fern

Mavis Flemmer

Muriel Fox

Rus Ervin Funk, RusFunk Consulting

Kristen Galles, Equity Legal

Susan Gibson

Julie Goldscheid, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law

Neil Gotanda, Professor of Constitutional Law, Western State College of Law

Rachel Graber

Courtney Green

Joanna L. Grossman, Chair in Women and Law, SMU Dedman School of Law

Nancy Hoghead-Makar, J.D.

Abby Honold

Lisalyn R. Jacobs, CEO of Just Solutions

Professor Deseriee Kennedy, Associate Dean of Diversity & Inclusion, Touro Law Center

Charles Kliment

Judith E. Koons, Professor of Law, Barry University School of Law

Kamala Lopez

Mary Lynch, Director of Domestic Violence Prosecution Hybrid Clinic, Albany Law Clinic &

Justice Center

Emily McCoy, Fairfax County Commission for Women

Joan S. Meier, Professor of Clinical Law and Legal Director of DV LEAP, George Washington

University Law School

Dr. LaWanda D. Miller, Assistant Athletics Director for Business Affairs and Senior Woman

Administrator, Fayetteville State University

Jocelyn Morris, Chair of NOW Task Force to End Racism

Gailya Paliga, President of NC NOW

Joette Prost, Ph.D.

Jane Randel, Co-Founder of NO MORE Campaign

Alberta S. Roesser, Past President of NOW Rochester

Diane L. Rosenfeld, Lecturer on Law & Director of Gender Violence Program, Harvard Law

School

Rita Smith

Jan Strout, US Women and Cuba Collaboration

Cindy Thomson, President NOW Charlotte

Roberta Waddle, Chairwoman, Cumberland County Democratic Party

Rita Webb

Martha J. Willi, MD