Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Friday released new proposed regulations on how schools should handle sexual assault that will give more benefit of doubt to the accused and walk back Obama-era directives that critics said were unfair to men.

The proposals, which would affect the way schools must interpret the federal Title IX gender equity law, were months in the making and contained some major surprises, including a new requirement that colleges conduct live hearings for sexual assault cases.

Under the US Department of Education’s proposed regulations, schools must let an accused person cross-examine their accuser through a third party, will be able to use a higher standard of evidence to decide an accused student’s guilt, and will not have to investigate reports of off-campus sexual assaults involving students.

The regulations detail several new steps K-12 schools will have to take investigating sexual misconduct cases. And the proposed guidelines narrow the definition of sexual harassment that schools are on the hook for addressing.

The regulations would apply to any school receiving federal funding, meaning all public school districts, virtually all colleges and universities, and some private K-12 schools taking government dollars. Certain provisions would only apply to higher education institutions, but not K-12 schools, and vice-versa.

DeVos vowed in September 2017 to reform what she considers a broken system for adjudicating sexual assault on college campuses, citing examples of male students who she said were unjustly punished after being accused of abuse.

“Throughout this process, my focus was, is, and always will be on ensuring that every student can learn in a safe and nurturing environment," DeVos said in a statement. "That starts with having clear policies and fair processes that every student can rely on."

The Trump administration estimates that the regulations will save schools nationwide between $286 million and $368 million over 10 years by having fewer sexual misconduct cases to investigate. Victims’ rights lawyers believe the regulations are designed to give schools an excuse to ignore sexual harassment on campuses.

“The goal is to basically reduce the obligation of schools to address sexual harassment,” said Elizabeth Tang, an attorney at the National Women's Law Center. “What the department is doing is inviting schools to ignore sexual harassment.”

The regulations do not go into effect right away, and could change. The proposal is going through a governmental process known as “notice and comment.” It has been printed in the Federal Register, and now any member of the public has 60 days to submit their opinion about the proposed rules in writing to the Education Department. The department’s political appointees will then decide whether the proposal needs tweaking. The process will likely take months, and several education lawyers expect legal challenges to the regulations, both from victim advocates who view the policies as unfair, and from colleges that think they are too prescriptive.



“I absolutely guarantee there will be litigation,” said Scott Schneider, a lawyer at Husch Blackwell, a firm that represents large universities.