Washington, DC – One day after standing with campus sexual assault survivors outside the Department of Education building, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today released the following statement after Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced forthcoming changes to the Title IX guidelines for campus sexual assault:
“Secretary DeVos’s announcement today betrays our students, plain and simple. With so many sexual assaults still happening on college campuses all over the country, we should be doing everything we can to make our Title IX enforcement policies stronger – not weakening or jeopardizing them. The Department of Education has a responsibility to keep our students safe and to guarantee fairness to both sexual assault survivors and those accused of sexual assault crimes. I don’t want to see an innocent person punished any more than I want to see a guilty person let off the hook, but Secretary DeVos has shown that she does not take the rights of survivors seriously. I will do everything in my power as a Senator to fight to support our sexual assault survivors, and I urge everyone who cares about safety and fairness on our college campuses to raise your voices with me.”