Betsy DeVos is (ack!) kinda sorta right about campus sexual assault and Title IX

Due process matters. And it’s another thing university administrators are bad at.

Campus sexual assault is a scourge on higher education. It has blighted the lives and educational prospects of far too many young women, and colleges have not done nearly enough to address it. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, meanwhile, is the worst thing to happen to American education since segregation. And so it gives me no pleasure at all to say that some of the recent changes to Title IX enforcement are probably good ones.

Not all of them, to be sure. Requiring that the conduct be both “severe” and “pervasive” in order to violate Title IX means that some conduct illegal in the workplace under Title VII is now permitted on campus. And the timing is terrible — expecting schools to put new policies into effect by August 14, 2020, with a pandemic raging, is ridiculous.

But the expanded definition of sexual harassment to include dating violence, stalking, and domestic violence is an improvement. And so is rebalancing of the rights of accused students. Perhaps with the best of intentions, the prior policies eroded some core due process protections for the accused. These changes are a needed corrective.