Plaintiffs Sue Department of Education and Betsy DeVos Over New Title IX Rules

David Newman was featured in the Boston University News Service coverage of the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, where lawyers representing advocacy groups and victims of sexual violence argued that the new Title IX rules governing how schools handle sexual misconduct complaints should be vacated.

“What the department has done here is not to effectuate [Title IX’s mandate to prevent discrimination], but to undercut it and to gut it,” David said, representing the plaintiffs.

David also argued that the Department of Education far overstepped its statutory jurisdiction by actively limiting the types of complaints that schools are allowed to review, and pointed out that new guidelines dismissing complaints from those who aren’t currently associated with institutions would single out those who were most victimized by sexual misconduct.

“There’s an Alice in Wonderland quality to these rules,” David said, arguing that traumatizing victims to the point where they dropped out of school would shield abusers from Title IX complaints.

In addition to David, the victims' rights groups are also represented by Morrison & Foerster's Natalie Fleming Nolen, Vanshika Vij, Caitlin Crujido, and Robin Smith.

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