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Jeannie Suk Gersen, Betsy DeVos, Title IX, and the “Both Sides” Approach to Sexual Assault, NewYorker.com (Sept. 8, 2017).


Abstract: An essay by Jeannie Suk Gersen. Over the summer, anticipation over what the Education Department might do about campus sexual assault heightened as the Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, held high-profile meetings with groups advocating for the interests of universities, sexual-assault victims, and accused students—including one men’s-rights group accused of harassing women online. DeVos’s civil-rights head, Candace Jackson, alarmingly, told the Times that “90 percent” of campus accusations are over drunk or breakup sex. As the new school year began in earnest, widespread fears of a “rollback” of Title IX enforcement accompanied DeVos’s long-awaited policy speech, which was delivered on Thursday, at George Mason University.