DeVos Policy May Discourage Sexual-Assault Complaints, Suit Says

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s guidance on how universities should handle student claims of sexual assault violates federal civil rights law and may discourage victims from filing complaints, a women’s rights group said in a lawsuit.

The Department of Education’s “Q and A on Campus Sexual Misconduct,” issued in September as a replacement for earlier Obama administration guidelines, illegally raises the standard of proof needed to hold physical offenders responsible, the nonprofit organization Equal Means Equal said in a complaint filed Thursday in federal court in Boston.