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Reforming How Colleges Handle Sexual Assault Cases

A sexual assault survivor and other readers discuss Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s proposed new policies and how blacks are disproportionately accused of rape.

The campus at California State University at Fullerton. Appeals courts have overturned suspensions of students for sexual assault at two California universities, citing a lack of due process.Credit...Leonard Ortiz/Digital First Media, via Orange County Register, via Getty Images

To the Editor:

ReA Liberal Case for DeVos’s Reforms,” by Lara Bazelon (Op-Ed, Dec. 5):

The story Ms. Bazelon relates about a rape accusation was never hers to tell. It’s mine.

I am the sexual assault survivor she refers to. She omitted key facts and weaponized my story — a white survivor who brought a complaint about a black student who was later suspended from college — such that it could be used against my fellow survivors, especially survivors of color, who would be the most harmed by Betsy DeVos’s proposed reforms. Women of color experience sexual violence at disproportionate rates and have more barriers to reporting and face disbelief.

If Ms. Bazelon truly cared about racial justice in the Title IX process, she would center on survivors of color and not reduce them to a parenthetical. The second accuser of my assailant to whom she refers is my friend, a woman of color; in her case, she wasn’t believed.

The trauma of sexual assault continues into the investigative process, which will worsen with the proposed regulations that Ms. Bazelon praises as a “step forward.” Ms. Bazelon knows firsthand how cross-examination harms survivors, because she cross-examined me. She saw me break down after she asked questions implying that I should have fought back harder.

I agree that the system is broken. But it’s broken because it was built on the premise that survivors lie. Ms. Bazelon’s rhetoric about due process only serves to worsen the problem.

Amelia W.
The writer’s full name has been withheld to protect her privacy.

To the Editor:

When they are forced to hastily decide students’ guilt or innocence on charges of sexual assault, school officials may rely on hunches or gut instinct — including subconscious racial bias — rather than gathering all relevant evidence. That’s the lesson of the huge racial disparities cited by Lara Bazelon. At some colleges, blacks are expelled for sexual assault at a dozen times the rate of students in general.

The Obama administration prodded colleges to immediately take “interim measures” against accused students, and speedily rule on their guilt. Colleges responded by expelling students before they could gather evidence of innocence (such as text messages showing consent).

Hopefully, the Title IX regulation proposed by the Trump administration will reduce such hasty decision making. It gives colleges more time to decide guilt or innocence, based on more evidence.

Hans Bader
Arlington, Va.
The writer is a former attorney in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

To the Editor:

Lara Bazelon’s Op-Ed is worrisome on many different levels. It implies that there is a trend of white female students wrongly accusing black male students of campus sexual assault. I have represented and counseled dozens of young women of all races who were raped and brutally sexually assaulted by their male classmates. No allegations in any of those instances were made against black students.

Moreover, it was the victims, not the accused, who were marginalized. Before they got legal help, the rape victims whom I dealt with were not offered the medical, psychological or academic support they needed to remain active members of their educational communities. They failed classes because their schools were not willing to extend deadlines. They dropped out of college. They self-harmed.

The numbers don’t lie. Schools more readily suspend and expel students for plagiarizing and cheating than for raping a fellow student. Also, schools look the other way when athletes of any race are accused of any wrongdoing, including rape.

The new regulations proposed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, like Ms. Bazelon’s narrative, presume that a significant number of female students are lying about being sexually assaulted, and make it harder for them to bring charges against rapists, who endanger all students on campus. Ms. DeVos’s regulations should be summarily rejected.

Penny Venetis
Newark
The writer is the director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Rutgers Law School.

To the Editor:

I agree with Lara Bazelon’s defense of the proposed Title IX guidelines on many counts, but the concern that black men are disproportionately accused of sexual assault on campus misses the mark. Athletes in sports such as football and basketball are more likely to commit sexual assault, perhaps because they are encouraged to think of themselves as godlike and untouchable. Black students are more likely than whites to play on these teams.

A 2016 University of Pennsylvania study showed that black men made up less than 3 percent of undergraduates, but comprised 56 percent of college football players and 61 percent of basketball players. If we think of these accused young men as athletes rather than in terms of race, the numbers no longer seem skewed.

Dena S. Davis
Bethlehem, Pa.
The writer is a professor of bioethics and religion studies at Lehigh University.

To the Editor:

Lara Bazelon makes several good points, but she, like so many others, overlooks what is to me the main point of this issue. Colleges and universities have no business whatsoever adjudicating cases of sexual assault. In virtually all its forms, sexual assault is a serious felony and should be dealt with by the proper criminal authorities.

The panels put together by institutions of higher education to hear and rule on these cases are ill equipped, to say the least (I know, I have served on one), to deal with such matters. The Obama-era rules are broken and should be overhauled to eliminate such procedures.

My advice to any college administrator to whom an alleged sexual assault is reported: Pick up the telephone and call the police. Flawed as our legal system is in dealing with sexual assault, it is much better than a bunch of untrained amateurs fumbling in unknown territory.

Peter S. Allen
Providence, R.I.
The writer is a retired professor of anthropology at Rhode Island College.

To the Editor:

Lara Bazelon’s Op-Ed struck a chord. I’m a liberal feminist, married to a woman, and the mother of two sons and a college-age daughter — and also a lawyer who has represented more than 100 accused students in Title IX proceedings.

While I completely agree with Professor Bazelon’s concerns about the disproportionate impact of Title IX proceedings on black men, I believe that Title IX reforms are needed for all students, male and female, black and white.

I am glad that women’s claims of assault are being taken seriously, but the corrective to past abuses is not to presume that accused students are guilty and deprive them of fundamental rights. A process that lacks integrity benefits no one, including victims of sexual assault.

The proposed new regulations have common-sense measures that liberals strongly support in other settings, consistent with our nation’s foundational values requiring that people accused of wrongdoing receive adequate notice, a fair hearing and a presumption of innocence.

Patricia M. Hamill
Philadelphia

To the Editor:

Lara Bazelon’s Op-Ed correctly lauds the proposed due process rights for the accused, but overlooks the bigger problem. Betsy DeVos proposed that schools be required only to investigate sexual misconduct alleged to have occurred on campus or other areas overseen by the school.

I have represented more than 150 students, both complainants and respondents, in campus disciplinary matters, including sexual misconduct hearings. It’s obvious that sexual misconduct commonly occurs in off-campus housing and students involved frequently attend the same school.

Title IX mandates that colleges promulgate procedures to prevent and remedy hostile educational environments created by sexual harassment and sexual violence. While the proposed rule doesn’t prevent schools from implementing disciplinary proceedings for off-campus misconduct, making decisions to investigate complaints of this nature discretionary is dangerous. Application will be inconsistent at best, meaning that students may have to attend classes with their alleged rapist, and the kind of hostile educational environments that are currently prevented may become inevitable.

Jonathan Cook
Newport, R.I.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section SR, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Colleges and Sexual Assault Cases. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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