On Sept. 7,  Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) planned to review existing Title IX guidance on campus sexual misconduct with an eye toward rescinding it.  Shortly thereafter, on Sept. 22, DeVos formally withdrew two agency guidance documents issued in 2011 and 2014, and released a new “Q&A on Campus Sexual Misconduct.”

While DeVos had previously declined to say whether she would uphold the Obama-era guidance during her Senate confirmation hearings, the withdrawal on Sept. 22 comes as no surprise.  The Department of Education had already begun its roll-back process on other Obama-era guidance in February when it rescinded a 2016 “Dear Colleague” letter on transgender students that was jointly issued by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice.