ASHE SCHOW: Bipartisan group calls for Education Dept. reform regarding campus sexual assault.

Department of Education regulations forcing colleges and universities to create pseudo-court systems to handle campus sexual assault are interfering with schools’ core mission to educate, according to a bipartisan report from a task force for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The report was designed to offer solutions for easing regulatory burdens on colleges, which have exploded in recent years.

“Over time, oversight of higher education by the Department of Education has expanded and evolved in ways that undermine the ability of colleges and universities to serve students and accomplish their missions,” the report said. “The compliance problem is exacerbated by the sheer volume of mandates — approximately 2,000 pages of text — and the reality that the Department of Education issues official guidance to amend or clarify its rules at a rate of more than one document per work day.” . . .

Regulations relating to Title IX, the report says, have only been formally implemented three times: in 1975, 2000 and 2006. But since then, the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which oversees Title IX compliance, has been creating new regulations stemming from the infamous 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter regarding campus sexual assaults.

“While OCR strenuously maintains that the letter does not add requirements to applicable law, the reality is that these standards impose serious additional responsibilities and break new policy ground,” the report said.

These new requirements are for colleges and universities to adjudicate accusations of sexual assault — a separate justice system that has been labeled a “kangaroo court” — which has led to lawsuits from both accusers and the accused that the system is biased.

Well, because it is, and it’s designed to be.