Betsy Devos is a Jerk
Now everybody knows for sure that Betsy Devos was not handed the job of Secretary of “Education’ because she knows anything the hell about education. She doesn’t.
She dresses nicely and tries to look like a school board member but she’s a mess, y’all. A total mess.
And now she wants us to think she knows about sexual harassment in education. She has proposed some new regulations. (The shorter version is right here.)
What it boils down to is this:
1. narrowed definition of sexual harassment, , i.e., “unwelcome sexual conduct” would only rise to the level of sexual harassment (as prohibited by Title IX) if it is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” that it effectively denies “a person equal access to an education program or activity.”;
2 new rules will no longer apply to many off-campus incidents;
3. higher standard of proof, i.e, “victims are required to file a formal written complaint” and the investigation includes live hearings with the “opportunity to test the credibility of parties and witnesses through cross examinations.”;
4. lowered reporting requirements, e.g., teaching assistants are no longer required to report violations despite their being the most likely to be talked with and to observe the harassment;
5. a major justification of the changes is to save schools money because they will have fewer cases.
Here’s an example which happened and wouldn’t be grievable under any of 1-3. A drunk male professor (repeatedly) demands that a female student worker pick him up at a bar to take him home and touches her inappropriate on the drive while telling her he loves her. Under the narrowed definition, she has no grievance because her grades are fine (1). The offense happened off campus (2). Among the witnesses are graduate students of the professor, so they would be intimidated from testifying with him present and able to cross-examine (3). Also, the professor could hire a lawyer, but the student, who was putting herself through school, could not, further penalizing the student (3).
Needless to say, plenty of people are horrified about this. You can add your comments only until January 28th. Click here for a shortcut to make comments.
Thanks to Sue for the heads up.
Honestly!!!! Is she serious??? I wonder if the people in Grand Rapids (DeVos home territory) know about this and what their reaction would be. These rule changes do go through quite a process. If the comments are mostly negative, there is a chance this sorry business can fall by the wayside. I know in my bones that various groups who deal with victims etc. are really going to come down on this.
1Gotta protect those athletic dollars, eh…
2Betsy DeVile manages to rise to the surface of worst of the worst of the Dotard34 maladministration. Dishonorable mention to Kirsten jail the children Nielsen. Vile, evil, despicable .. just a few of the character traits required to function within this maladministration.
3As someone who vividly remembers the day my 16-year-old self (yes I took college classes kinda early) had an oily Prof lock the door of his office during a required individual conference and scare the crud out of me, I can assure you….I would never have brought a formal complaint, even had one been available to me back in the dinosaur age. Never. Ever.
Screw this.
4It is about time that women recognize that the “authorities” are not their freinds.
5Why women report rape and sexual harassment to the university rather then going straight to local police and ensuring at the very least that there is an official document about the assault.
Going to the university first, espiacially in regards to star jocks or legacy students, only gives the schools time to destroy evidence, start a cover up and besmirch the victim.
Are the local cops any better is doubtful but as I said at least an official report is filed and the university loses its oppurtunity of using so called hearings to white wash the crime and create a smokescreen based upon what there kangaroo courts decide.
Comments not functional at the regulations.gov site.
6Betsy’s only qualifications are that she married into the Amway Scam money and her brother is Erik Prince of Blackwater Security infamy.
7Folks, there really isn’t anything to worry about. These rules will surely be challenged legally, probably going all the way to the supreme court.
8And now that Brett Kavanaugh is there, victims’ rights are the highest priority.
…..wait…
Betsy Devos is a scumbag.
9And not in a good way.
Also, and I know it’s off topic, but why hasn’t Nancy Pelosi introduced legislation making the Weaselheaded f**knuggett’s secret service agents part of the group that’s been furloughed?
10As a life-long Michigan resident, I can tell you that the Devos family has done everything they can to destroy public education in our state. The agenda of the fake Christian Devos family is to turn all the schools into for-profit unaccountable charters cranking out little warriors for Jesus. The Devos’ have also bought and paid for some of the most heinous legislation to ever pass our legislature, including Right to Work for Less. Every Republican in this state is owned by them.
11Done, and thank you.
12Mark Johnson, I just submitted my comments. It’s an annoying site, and you will have to carefully follow every nit-picky requirement to get it submitted, but after going back and finding my “errors” two or three times, it went through.
13Bet Betsy would change her tune if one of her granddaughters’ teachers got caught doing jig-jig with the kid in the school broom closet.
14I had already submitted a comment. I chair a university committee on grad student and postdoc welfare, and this is a big concern. We have gradually been making progress in changing attitudes, behavior, and resources to address problems. DeVos wants to reverse all that.
15I was mauled under the table by a candidate for dept head, at his interview dinner, with other faculty also present, many years ago. My male colleague sniffed and said “You must have imagined it!” I went ballistic and told him if I were gonna imagine someone feeling up my thigh, it’d be Robert Redford, not some squat guy who looked like a toad. Turned out the candidate had a rep even at his own institution, but no one could or would do anything. At least he didn’t get the job.
I found an excellent reference to most things “Dominionist”, which DeVos is in spades, and covering much of the whole Christofascist/RWNJ toxosphere in our nation. It is far far worse than you may have thought.
The first reference to ‘Betsy DeVos’ is about 20% down a very long webpage (link below), there is a very thorough and comprehensive analysis of Ms. DeVos and her networks (best anywhere).
It gives chingos of ties and connections of the DeVos family to many of the modern day Christofascist players, it names names and companies involved in the whole movement.
I’ll bet y’all didn’t know just how extensively these people have infiltrated our nations’ very structure; on reading this I was astounded, and I follow the topic fairly closely.
(Note: In the quote below, “Salem Communications” is linked into the whole skein of RWNJ’ery. Salem and the Genesis Network stations carry a lot of RW programming, like “Alex Jones”)
Start reading the whole thing if you dare (it is enlightening and damn frightening), skim on down, OR use your browser’s “find function”: control + F , enter search term [betsy devos]”, enjoy (cough cough):
Dominionism’s parallel economy: Corporate sponsors:
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/8/23/142836/277
“Talk To Action” main page:
http://www.talk2action.org/
Example:
“If that weren’t enough, AmWay’s founder is probably the biggest corporate funder of dominionism in the US.
Funding of dominionist groups occurs through the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation as well as the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation; Media Transparency has written on several of the groups funded. A partial list of groups known to be specifically funded include the Coalition for National Policy, Focus on the Family, Traditional Values Coalition, Foundation for Traditional Values, Campus Crusade for Christ, Prison Fellowship Ministries, Gospel Communications (in fact, DeVos is co-owner along with
***Salem Communications***),
Assemblies of God televangelist Luis Palau, Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services (a dominionist-run “mental health” facility), Ave Maria School of Law (a dominionist law school founded by the former Domino’s CEO Tom Monaghan), and Coral Ridge Ministries (links here and here for all the gory details). Media sources have noted that the DeVos Foundation is probably one of the top two corporate funders of Focus on the Family (along with Truett Cathy of Chick-Fil-A); Rolling Stone has noted that the DeVos foundations contributed over (US) $5 million annually to dominionist groups as of 2005.
According to multiple media reports, Richard DeVos himself is a member of the Coalition for National Policy; the CNP is a group that is invitation-only and largely operates as a “five year planning committee” between dominionist and purely political neoconservative groups. Multiple sources have stated that the DeVos foundations are one of the primary funding sources for the CNP. “
16Just what we need – “to institute a nation governed by Christians based on their personal understandings of biblical law” [Wikipedia].
Given that the Old Testament recommends handing your daughters over for rape in order to pacify an angry mob (and giving an old shoe to your brother-in-law if you don’t want to marry him), and the New Testament demands that we feed the poor, clothe the naked, and care for widows and orphans, I’d rather pick my OWN personal understanding of biblical law rather than somebody else’s to live by, and THEIR understanding had best not interfere with that.
17Pence Loves her……which is the reason Indiana’s public schools are such a mess, with money taken from them and added to the at least 80% religious Charter Schools all over the state…she is a public abortion.
18Karma!!!
19Betsy DeVos fell off her bicycle and broke her pelvis and hip socket.
Pray for her. To suffer.