According to Title IX of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
In the decades that followed the passing of this law, courts decided that sex discrimination could constitute sexual misconduct, should it result in a woman being denied access to education. In 1999, the Supreme Court decided in Davis v. Munroe that the threshold for such an offense was that it be “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive.” However, the Obama administration lowered the bar considerably in its 2011 “Dear Colleague” guidance letter to schools, favoring a “preponderance of evidence” standard for judgments. The unhappy result of this executive overreach, documented here at National Review, was the formation of kangaroo courts on college campuses across the country.
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