When Donald Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, rescinded the Obama-era Title IX guidelines and protections for victims of sexual assault, she claimed that they had been “heavily criticized.” This, of course, was a complete fabrication. Her own department’s analysis of the effects of changing the Obama-era Title IX implementation showed that the only “positive” outcome was saving institutions millions of dollars by minimizing their liabilities, while also reducing the chances that students who were assaulted or harassed would receive fewer protections. As evidence mounts that the secretary’s new position on Title IX has led to less investigation into campus assaults, DeVos and company have subsequently been sued by equal rights activists for the Education Department’s new pro-rape stance.
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The New York Times now reports that Betsy DeVos’ own alma mater, Holland Christian High School in Holland, Michigan, is being sued for violating the Obama-era Title IX protections. Holland resident Michelle Hoffman says her 15-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by the daughter’s 17-year-old fellow student and boyfriend while attending the private religious school. According to Hoffman, the principal not only dismissed her daughter’s claims as “underage sex,” but he and the staff went out of their way to protect the boy involved—reported to be the grandchild of a former Holland Christian principal.
Ms. Holland told the Times that while many people are focused on the college-level protections of Title IX, she hopes that people like DeVos remember that those protections extend to secondary and primary schools, saying, “We pray that ours can be the case that makes Betsy say, ‘maybe this isn’t the right way to go.”