Gehrke: Betsy DeVos should look to Utah if she thinks her changes to campus assault policies will make things better

If Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants a real-world demonstration of the perils of her new campus sexual-assault directives, she should pay a visit to Utah.

Over the last two years, my Pulitzer Prize-winning colleagues have documented a host of problems surrounding how colleges up and down the state have responded to sexual violence on campus, bringing heightened awareness and major policy changes.

Much of that could be undone under the new guidance that DeVos sent to schools last week. The recommendations, in essence, would let colleges shift the burden of proof, making it harder to prove a nonconsensual sexual encounter occurred.

Before 2011, many of the decisions on how to respond to campus assaults had been left up to the respective institutions. Even after the Obama administration told schools to take a stronger stand, responses were flawed.

At Brigham Young University, the Title IX office — charged with supporting students who report sexual violence — was improperly intertwined with Honor Code enforcement. Some women who came to get help were punished for Honor Code violations. At the University of Utah, one student said it took the school more than a year after her report to find the man who assaulted her responsible.

At Utah State University, abysmal coordination between campus officials and law enforcement meant one accused offender slipped through the cracks and allegedly preyed on other students. A new survey released the same week as DeVos’ new guidance found that 1 in 10 women at Utah State reported being the victim of unwanted sexual contact during their time at the school.

One in 10, out of the more than 15,000 women enrolled at the university. At some large schools nationally, the rate is as high as 30 percent. It’s stunning to contemplate.

The U. and BYU, along with Dixie State University and Westminster, are currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. USU is under investigation by the Department of Justice.

BYU has also revamped its policies to allow for amnesty for those who report assaults to officials.

Yet DeVos would now let schools, if they choose, require “clear and convincing” proof — rather than a “preponderance of the evidence” — in order for the institution to discipline a student. She is removing a requirement that schools provide victim support services, permitting informal mediation in the place of a formal hearing process and scrapping deadlines to complete investigations.

As we have seen, these cases are notoriously difficult to prove and shifting the burden more heavily to the accuser while removing other supports will have a chilling effect on a crime that is already vastly underreported.

Here’s where DeVos gets it right: The interim guidelines emphasize that those accused of sexual assault deserve a fair hearing, with guarantees of due process and representation.

But the policy appears to not be based on procedural concerns, but a sense that what was in place was, as DeVos put it, a “failed system” unfairly skewed toward the accusers. The head of the Education Department’s Civil Rights office, Candice Jackson, told The New York Times in July that 90 percent of allegations result from drunken hook-ups or were driven by vendettas by spurned lovers — only to recant the statement the same day.

We don’t know, really, how often false accusations are made or accused assailants are vindicated — and that is a big part of the problem.

We don’t have any evidence to show a pattern of young men having their lives destroyed due to fabricated claims of sexual assault. We do, however, have a well-documented pattern at multiple universities of young women being doubted, questioned, sanctioned and ignored when they come forward as victims of attacks.

Yet DeVos is building a new policy on a foundation that doesn’t exist, using conjecture and presumption rather than data to tilt the scales decidedly in favor of the accused.

We know that the issues surrounding campus assault are rarely black and white, but in her new book, “Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power and Consent on Campus,” journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis offers some compelling suggestions on how to narrow the gray areas.

Not surprisingly, much of it involves expanded education, focusing on responsible alcohol use, stressing the importance of affirmative consent — “Yes means yes,” making sure students are aware of victim support resources and the value and urgency of rape kits, and helping students understand the risks of events off campus, where school regulations don’t apply.

And these efforts should start long before those young men and women ship off to college, if for no other reason than because assault doesn’t start in college and certainly isn’t limited to those who go on to college.

That is where the Utah Legislature and state and local school boards need to step up to address the problem. The U.S. Department of Education needs to gather the data to craft an informed policy.

And Utah colleges and universities can and should maintain a forward-leaning stance when it comes to addressing sexual assault, rather slide back to the practices of the past.