{"id":5581,"date":"2017-07-21T11:02:51","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T18:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=5581"},"modified":"2017-07-21T11:02:51","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T18:02:51","slug":"alec-meeting-week-denver-mary-bottari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2017\/07\/21\/alec-meeting-week-denver-mary-bottari\/","title":{"rendered":"‘”ALEC Is Meeting This Week in Denver” by Mary Bottari"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Blue Bear, looking in the window of the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. (Photo by\u00a0Joel Gillman<\/a>\u00a0| Flickr\u00a0CC 2.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

July 19, 2017 (billmoyers.com)<\/p>\n

This post originally appeared at<\/em>\u00a0Exposed by CMD<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s massive\u00a0Blue Bear<\/a>\u00a0will be peering in the windows as US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos headlines the 44th<\/sup>\u00a0American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Annual Meeting\u00a0being held at the Colorado Convention Center\u2019s Hyatt Regency Hotel July 19-21.<\/p>\n

Other big names speaking at the event include Trump defender-in-chief Newt Gingrich, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, Republican pollster Frank Luntz and local megadonor and light beer magnate Peter Coors, who chairs the right-wing\u00a0Coors Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Center for Media and Democracy\u00a0reported that there will be a debate on the\u00a0ALEC draft model bill to repeal the 17th<\/sup>\u00a0Amendment<\/a>, but many other controversial issues will be\u00a0on the ALEC agenda<\/a>\u00a0as the meeting gets underway tomorrow. ALEC will be debating bills related to sexual assault on college campuses, campus protest, taxpayer vouchers for private schools and well-off families, the rollback of popular renewable energy programs, the dismantling the Affordable Care Act and more.<\/p>\n

College Sexual Assault Takes Center Stage<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sexual harassment and sexual assault\u00a0have been a crisis on US\u00a0college campuses for decades. National and campus surveys have repeatedly shown sexual assault to be at epidemic levels affecting 20-25 percent of college women. A\u00a0recent survey of 23,000 undergrads released by the US Department of Justice in 2016\u00a0determined\u00a0that 1 in 5 female undergraduates<\/a>\u00a0experience some kind of sexual assault while in college. Only\u00a012.5 percent of victims reported the assault to colleges or law enforcement and an even smaller percentage achieved some form of justice.<\/p>\n

In 2011,\u00a0President Obama\u2019s Department of Education<\/a>\u00a0issued guidance to college campuses receiving federal Title IX money urging them to improve the investigation and adjudication of assault.\u00a0The department has investigated and found colleges and universities that do not follow the guidance to be in violation of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender. This more aggressive prosecutorial stance and a few high-profile cases of sexual assault allegations that were later called into question appear to have made assault on college campuses a partisan issue.<\/p>\n

Last week [Education Secretary Betsy] DeVos held a listening session on the issue giving defendants equal representation as victims, and took a stand \u2014 for the accused.<\/div>\n

Now the Trump administration is weighing in.\u00a0Last week DeVos held a listening session on the issue giving defendants equal representation as victims, and took a stand \u2014 for the accused.\u00a0DeVos said the stories of those claiming to be wrongly accused of campus sexual assault \u201care not often told<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0Earlier, Candice E. Jackson, the top civil rights official at the\u00a0Department of Education under DeVos, told\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0that \u201cthe accusations \u2014 90 percent of them \u2014 fall into the category of \u2018we were both drunk,\u2019 \u2018we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.\u201d She later apologized for this attack on victims, but she and DeVos made it clear that they were ready to roll back the progress made under the Obama administration in addressing the epidemic of college rape.<\/p>\n

After decades of pushing extreme, punitive measures, like\u00a0Mandatory Minimums<\/a>, ALEC is poised to go pro-defendant. ALEC wants to make sure that alleged perpetrators are permitted to lawyer up when expulsion is being contemplated.<\/p>\n

ALEC corporate and legislative members will be debating a new draft bill that gives college student defendants and victims the right to have an attorney represent them in non-academic disciplinary hearings.<\/p>\n