Education Department Says Schools Must Post Previously Hidden Title IX Training Materials

For years, accused students have been at a disadvantage due to the hiding of materials used to train Title IX adjudicators. During lawsuits, accused students are rarely able to obtain the training materials that would show supposedly neutral investigators were actually trained to believe accusers and not the accused.

When those materials were obtained, they showed that Title IX investigators tasked with looking into claims of student-on-student sexual assault were trained to believe that women rarely, if ever, lie about sexual assault. Training materials include the misleading and biased statistic that just 2% of sexual assault allegations are false, which would naturally give investigators the idea that they would be wise to believe the accusation no matter what the evidence suggests, because more than nine times out of 10, they would be right.

As I have reported numerous times, the statistic that very few sexual assault allegations are false is simply incorrect. The truth is that we don’t know how many are really false. The 2% to 10% figure only refers to allegations that were proven false and classified by police as such. Using this same logic, one could say just 2% to 3% are true, since that’s how many allegations lead to an arrest, trial, and guilty verdict.

Further, the statistic applies to police reports. College campuses have a much lower bar and a far higher incentive to find for the accuser no matter the evidence, meaning false accusations are likely to be he higher, since they can be used to get a man kicked off campus quite easily.

Title IX training materials that have been released also show schools using the scientifically unsound “trauma-informed” technique, which teaches adjudicators that classic signs of lying are actually signs of trauma and the truth. For example, trauma-informed training says that women who change their stories about their allegations, or who continue to send friendly and loving messages to their alleged attacker are actually traumatized and trying to process what happened to them.

The training materials and policies developed for the University of Texas System, for example, told investigators to “anticipate” and “counter” defense strategies, rather than simply investigate the facts of the case. School police officers were instructed not to write down detailed reports from multiple interviews with accusers and witnesses, so that the defending student can’t point to inconsistencies in the claims.

When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos introduced new Title IX rules for schools that required them to provide much needed due process to students, the Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA), which produces most of the training materials used by colleges (for a hefty price) instructed schools not to post those materials, citing copyright laws.

DeVos has now published the official Title IX guidance, and has altered the section about training materials:

• All materials used to train Title IX personnel:
  • Must not rely on sex stereotypes,
  • Must promote impartial investigations and adjudications of formal complaints of sexual harassment,
  • Must be maintained by the school for at least 7 years,
  • Must be publicly available on the school’s website; if the school does not maintain a website the school must make the training materials available upon request for inspection by members of the public.

Schools must post their training materials. Not doing so would run afoul of the federal government (though many schools will likely flout the new regulations anyway without any political consequences due to media support and the #MeToo movement). Schools will no longer be able to use copyrighted training materials if they can’t post them on their website.

Accused students still have a long road ahead of them before schools and the culture accepts that just because someone is accused doesn’t mean they’re guilty. We’re now taught that accusations are fact (unless you accuse a Democrat) and that if schools don’t punish the accused, even if evidence suggests he is innocent, bad publicity will surely follow.

DeVos’ rules, however, take a big step toward correcting this injustice.