Senator Demands Answers From Department of Education About Controversial Mandates
9th January 2016
Read it.
I predict that he will receive what we lawyers call a ‘non-responsive answer’.
Issued in 2010 and 2011 under the guise of “Dear Colleague” letters, OCR’s mandates dictate how colleges and universities that accept federal funding—virtually every institution in the country—must respond to bullying and sexual misconduct in order to comply with federal anti-discrimination statutes like Title IX. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and other civil liberties organizations have repeatedly criticized the letters for threatening freedom of expression and due process on campus by defining First Amendment-protected expression as “harassment” and mandating the use of the lowest standard of proof in sexual misconduct cases, among other requirements.
Senator Lankford notes that OCR’s letters “fail to point to precise governing statutory or regulatory language that support their sweeping policy change.”
Legislative authority? We don’t need no legislative authority.