Education Secy Betsy DeVos Announces Plans To Revise Title 9 Sexual Assault On Campus Rules

Education Secy Betsy DeVos Announces Plans To Revise Title 9 Sexual Assault On Campus Rules

US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced changes Thursday to an Obama-era directive regarding sexual-assault allegations on campus. Speaking at George Mason University in Virginia, DeVos said “The truth is that the system established by the prior administration has failed too many students." She pledged to replace the “failed system” with a “workable, effective, and fair system” that addresses the needs and rights for both sexual-assault victims and the accused.

“Every survivor of sexual misconduct must be taken seriously. Every student accused of sexual misconduct must know that guilt is not predetermined,” she said.

Leaving the current rules in place for now, DeVos said that a public comment period would open soon, in order to craft new rules. 

“We will seek public feedback and combine institutional knowledge, professional expertise, and the experiences of students to replace the current approach with a workable, effective, and fair system,” DeVos said.

Boys Club | Obama Weighs In On Rape | Petition To Take Back Cosby's Medal of Honor | How Complicit Is Camille Cosby In The Alleged Rapes of Women?

The facts of comedian and Presidential Medal of Honor winner Bill Cosby’s rape allegations by countless — nearly 50 in some reports — women who continue to emerge from the shadows have not been adjudicated in a court of law.

The closest the public has come to learning of any admission of guilt from the nationally-beloved Cosby is a recently published Associated Press story revealing court documents from 2005 in which Cosby admitted under oath that years prior he gave quaaludes, a powerful relaxing and mood-altering drug, to women with whom he sought sex.

President Obama Comments Indirectly About Bill Cosby & Rape

This admission fueled growing demands that Cosby be stripped of his 2002 medal awarded him by then president George W. Bush. African American White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief for American Urban Radio Networks April Ryan posed the question about President Obama’s possible revocation of Cosby’s medal.

President Obama responded:

“If you give a woman — or a man, for that matter — without his or her knowledge a drug and then have sex with that person without consent, that’s rape… . I think this country, any civilized country should have no tolerance for rape.”

Sens. Kirstin Gillibrand (D-NY) & Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) Sign Petition

Angela Rose, executive director of Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment, insists that the president could issue an executive order rescinding the medal, make a personal statement that it should be rescinded, or simply ask Cosby for the medal back.

Two senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) have signed Rose’s petition. Last week, a spokeswoman for Gillbrand, who is known — like McCaskill — for pushing for reform in how sexual assault allegations are handled in the military and on college and university campuses, told Politico that the senator supported a drive to strip Cosby of his medal “because we need to set a clear example that sexual assault will not be tolerated in this country, and someone who admitted using drugs for sex no longer deserves the nation’s highest honor.”

Camille Cosby Blames the Women     Read on in Women-In-Deoth