Betsy DeVos's plan to give students accused of sexual assault more rights branded 'an insult to survivors'

'Secretary DeVos made the work of holding violent perpetrators accountable more difficult,' says Senator Bob Casey

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks about campus sexual assault and enforcement of Title IX, the federal law that bars discrimination in education on the basis of gender (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has pitched her overhaul of campus sexual assault policies as a better deal for both survivors and the accused. But some survivors and their advocates aren’t buying it.

“Secretary DeVos’ decision to revisit existing campus sexual assault protections is an insult to survivors of sexual assault,” tweeted Democratic Senator Bob Casey. “...Today, Sec DeVos made the work of holding violent perpetrators accountable more difficult.”

Ms Devos recently announced her intention to roll back policies aimed at making the reporting process easier for survivors. The Obama-era policies, Ms DeVos claimed, pushed schools to “overreach,” and deny the accused their right to due process.

“With the heavy hand of Washington tipping the balance of her scale, the sad reality is that Lady Justice is not blind on campuses today,” she said in an address at George Mason University’s Law School.

The Obama-era reforms came only after dozens of survivors came forward to claim their universities had mishandled their sexual assault cases. Survivors said they had been discouraged from reporting, ignored by administrators, and even forced to live in houses with their alleged assailants.

Many of these complaints were validated in subsequent Education Department investigations. Almost 40 schools were found to have violated federal gender discrimination laws since 2011, and hundreds more are still under investigation.

After Ms DeVos’s address, many expressed concern that survivors’ complaints would once again be minimised.

“DeVos' rhetoric on #TitleIX will chill reporting of heinous acts, take us back to the days of victims being treated like perps,” tweeted Democratic Representative Jackie Speier.

Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, went further, calling the announcement a “green light” to sweep sexual assault under the rug.

“We refuse to return to the days when schools could mistreat survivors with impunity,” she said in a statement.

Ms DeVos appeared to anticipate some of these critiques in her address. At one point, she claimed the current system "re-traumatised" survivors by forcing them through multiple appeals after their assailants were denied due process.

"The results of the current approach?" she asked. "Everyone loses."

But Jess Davidson, managing director of End Rape on Campus, said she was most concerned by Ms DeVos's lack of concert plans to remedy the situation.

“We have survivors who are calling us in tears because they don’t know what this means or them,” she told The Independent. “People’s lives and people’s well-being are on the line so long as they don’t know what their rights are. And that’s a scary place to be in.”