The Patriot Post® · Obama's Title IX Iron

Throughout his time in office, Barack Obama has sought means by which to unilaterally orchestrate his desired leftist transformation of American culture. One of his most effective tools has been novel use of the Title IX portion of the 1972 Education Amendment of the Civil Rights Act. Obama and team have essentially limited freedom of speech on college campuses through their radical interpretations and applications of the law. Examples of this have been seen in the administration’s approach to combating problems of campus sexual assaults. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) under Obama recently took Fostburg State University to task stating that the university’s sexual harassment policy fell short of Title IX standards. The university’s policy used “common sense” and “reason” as the measurement by which to establish whether or not an incident was to be identified as sexual harassment.

The OCR sees this standard of determining what constitutes sexual harassment as too limiting. So what standard does the OCR suggest as liberal enough to meet Title IX demands? For the OCR, any claim of sexual harassment is the standard — no matter how innocent or unintentional the words or actions of an accused individual may be. In other words, if sexual harassment is claimed, then it has occurred. What of due process and the concept of innocent until proven guilty? Evidentially, there is no room for these roadblocks as leftists pursue their goal of radicalized gender “equality.” No wonder they’re attacking “common sense” and “reason.”

Having such a subjective standard for determining what constitutes sexual harassment accomplishes two things. First it helps to further the leftist narrative that America’s colleges and universities are plagued with a “rape culture” beyond what conservatives would argue is one of sexually promiscuity. Secondly, it creates another convenient excuse for the government to justify dictating even more policies and practices to which schools will be bound. Another problem, more government power.