Women’s Group Slams DeVos Announcement, Says “There Are No Two Sides to Rape”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, September 7, 2017
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Women’s Group Slams DeVos Decision to Review And Likely Weaken Title IX Protections for Sexual Assault Survivors, Says “There Are No Two Sides to Rape”
UltraViolet: With 1-in-4 Women Raped on Campus, Protecting Survivors Should Not Be Up for Debate
Moments ago, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced that the Trump Administration will re-write an Obama-era directive to colleges and universities on sexual assault in an effort to “balance the rights of victims and the accused.” In the speech announcing the decision, DeVos signaled her support for so-called “men’s rights activists” claiming that current guidelines undermined the due process rights of those accused of sexual assault.
In reaction to DeVos’ announcement, Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet, a leading national women’s advocacy group, explained:
“With one-in-four women sexually assaulted while in college – we are facing a national rape epidemic on our campuses, and today’s announcement makes clear that Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump are more concerned with protecting perpetrators than the survivors they sexual assaulted. Sadly, given Trump’s own history of bragging about sexual assault, I guess we should not be surprised,
“There are no two sides when it comes to rape. Period.
“With sexual assaults routinely going unreported, uninvestigated and unpunished , the scales are already heavily tipped in the favor of rapists. The idea that we need to focus more on the rights of the accused would be laughable if it weren’t so terrifying and outright dangerous.”
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