ACLU Sues Betsy DeVos for…Standing Up for Students’ Civil Liberties

Proving yet again that they are much more concerned with making themselves the official legal arm of woke leftism than they are with defending “civil liberties,” the ACLU filed a lawsuit on Thursday that seeks to block the new federal sexual assault guidelines coming from the Department of Education. Secretary Betsy DeVos announced the new guidance last week, and it was immediately clear to anyone with a beating pulse that it was a step in the right direction after the Obama administration made a mockery out of due process on college campuses.

In the guidance, DeVos sought to restore sanity to a sexual abuse allegations process that had gone completely off the rails under the Obama regime. Caught up in the whirlwind of feminist statistics regarding “rape culture” and all the rest, the Obama administration set out to turn a college sexual assault accusation into actual proof of a crime. If you were accused under these rules, you basically had to prove yourself innocent. That is, if the college bothered to give you a chance to do so.

As even NBC News admits, the new guidance from DeVos “effectively bolster the rights of due process for those accused of sexual assault and harassment, allowing for live hearings and cross-examinations. It’s what agency officials say was lacking during the Obama administration to protect all students under Title IX, a 1972 law that prohibits gender discrimination, including sexual assault, at schools.”

Seems to us that if the ACLU actually stood for the principles on the marquee, they would champion such an effort.

Instead, they’re suing.

In a press release accompanying the suit, the ACLU wrote:

The rule subjects reports of sexual harassment to a different and more skeptical review than reports of harassment based on race, national origin, or disability — creating a second-class standard for reports of sexual harassment and assault. The department itself anticipates that four-year institutions will now investigate 32 percent fewer reports of sexual harassment and assault.

The suit was filed on behalf of plaintiffs Know Your IX, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Girls for Gender Equity, and Stop Sexual Assault in Schools — all organizations dedicated to helping students who experience sexual harassment and assault continue their education.

If the new guidance subjects sexual harassment reports to greater scrutiny than those other categories, then that is a call to clamp down on THOSE allegations as well. Regardless of the accusation, students are entitled to due process, a fair hearing, and the opportunity to confront their accuser with a cogent defense. These are the principles of our justice system and they should be the principles on campus.

Betsy DeVos is trying to restore civil liberties. The American Civil Liberties Union is pushing a feminist agenda.