Assault victims and their allies worry that the meetings are pro forma, a mere exercise in advance of an announcement that the Trump administration plans to reverse course on federal guidance that played a key role in forcing colleges to do more to protect survivors of sexual violence. Advocates for the accused, meanwhile, see an opening to do away with an approach that they argue has led colleges to conduct biased investigations that label innocent students as rapists.

“We’re not interested in getting rid of civil rights,” said Cynthia Garrett, co-president of Families Advocating for Campus Equality (FACE), a group founded by three mothers who said their sons were falsely accused of sexual misconduct on campus. “What we do oppose,” she said, is the Education Department’s “coercive and punitive attitude toward schools, because we believe it drove schools to decide that it was easier to find a student guilty and there would be fewer repercussions than finding a student not responsible.” Full story.

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