Dept of Education orders universities to lower burden of proof in sex crime cases
...Will Creeley, FIRE’s director of legal and public advocacy, added that the concerns are not theoretical, that students are already having to prepare defenses to the lower standards.

“OCR has moved past the kind of normal responses we would expect to see, i.e. more training, clearer policies, and has decided instead to ‘level the playing field’ by tilting the scales quite clearly in favor of the accuser at the expense of justice on campus,” Creeley told TheDC. “This is a very real dangerous change that will affect student’s lives. More students will erroneously be found guilty of sexual assault due to these lower standards.”

FIRE also wrote of concerns about the stifling of free speech, namely OCR’s failure to address distinctions between “politically incorrect” expression and sexual harassment...