In what might sound like a good development, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is meeting with advocates for campus sexual assault survivors as she considers whether to roll back Obama-era requirements for campuses investigating sexual assault allegations. But before you cheer that move, consider this: DeVos is also meeting with advocates for campus rapists. Casey Quinlan offers important background on some of the groups DeVos will be meeting with as she decides how colleges will handle sexual assault:
The National Coalition for Men, which was founded in the 1970s, has a long history of what is now known as “men’s rights activism.” One of the groups’ chapters published the photos and names of women, while calling them “false accusers.” [...]
Harry Crouch, president of National Coalition for Men, has also vocally blamed survivors for the abuse they faced. In a 2014 interview with Pacific Standard, Crouch defended Ray Rice, a former football player, who was indicted in 2014 on third-degree aggravated assault for an incident involving his then fiancee. “I’m not saying he’s a good guy,” Crouch said. “But if she hadn’t aggravated him, she wouldn’t have been hit. They would say that’s blaming the victim. But I don’t buy it.”
SAVE: Stop Abusive and Violent Environments is included in a list of misogynist websites put together by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In 2013, SAVE published an article alleging that many civil rights, like the “right to privacy in family affairs,” have been “undermined by domestic violence laws.” [...]
Families Advocating for Campus Equality (FACE) is a non-profit founded a few years ago by mothers of sons who were accused of sexual misconduct while they attended college. The website describes the “ruined futures” of the accused and “havoc of unjustly dismantled lives.” Under the text, “Title IX’s future victims,” the site published the story of a man who said he was falsely accused of rape and equates his experience to that of a rape survivor.
So, yeah. We'll be lucky if the Education Department doesn’t issue rules requiring colleges to pay for lawyers for accused rapists while prohibiting victims from having representation even at their own expense. Because life is already too damn hard for the Brock Turners of the world.