"bureaucratic sex creep"

Glenn Reynolds writes in USA Today,

One doubts that the members of Congress who drafted Title IX intended to produce what Harvard Law School professors Jacob Gersen and Jeannie Suk have called ”bureaucratic sex creep,” in which colleges — allegedly to ensure compliance with Title IX’s non-discrimination mandate — micromanage the sex lives of students, and subject them to Orwellian levels of surveillance, investigation and supervision. In essence, students now risk being kicked out of school for not getting express consent for every sexual act, all based on a law that was intended, four decades ago, to end discrimination in college athletics.

...Sen. (and former Education secretary) Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., grilled Education Department officials about its letters, noting that although the department told the Senate its “guidance” wasn’t legally binding, it was simultaneously telling colleges and universities that they faced loss of federal funding if they didn’t comply. But that didn’t change anything.

...President-elect Donald Trump has named Betsy DeVos to be secretary of Education, but there’s no word yet as to who will be the head of the Department’s Office for Civil Rights. (Maybe they should consider Shibley.) But it seems clear that the overreach we’ve seen needs to be rolled back.

...Ideally, we’ll take an approach based on due process and common sense, which would represent a considerable change over the past several years’ policies.

One thing is clear: The micromanagement of universities — and of students — in the name of Title IX needs to change. I hope that the Trump administration will return some common sense to this area.

Read more here.