Trump Throws Catnip at His Men’s Rights Activist Base

In 2022, the Biden administration then introduced Title IX rules that rescinded some of Trump’s and also expanded Title IX to include protections for LGBTQ and pregnant students. The majority of Republican-controlled states challenged Biden’s rules and, in January, a federal judge in Kentucky officially scrapped them. 

Among Trump’s former and now reinstated guidelines is an especially cruel requirement that mandates schools hold live hearings for accused students to cross-examine their accusers, which can be highly traumatic for rape survivors. Trump’s rules also allow schools to skirt liability for off-campus assaults, and allow them to use the “clear and convincing evidence” standard of proof when investigating reports. This requires about 75% certainty to determine if someone has committed sexual misconduct—a much higher evidentiary standard than the “preponderance of the evidence” standard, which requires 51% certainty and is standard for civil suits. The rules also require that sexual harassment allegations be “objectively offensive, severe, and pervasive” for schools to take action.

“This is an incredibly disappointing decision that will leave many survivors of sexual violence, LGBTQ+ students, and pregnant and parenting students without the accommodations critical to their ability to learn and attend class safely,” Emma Grasso Levine, senior manager at the student-led survivor justice organization Know Your IX, said in a statement. “Schools must step up to protect students in the absence of adequate federal guidance.”

During Trump’s first term, his Education Department under Betsy DeVos rolled out these guidelines at a time of surging anti-feminist backlash to the MeToo movement. DeVos worked closely with prominent, accused men’s rights groups, and DeVos’ assistant secretary for civil rights made the false, inflammatory claim that 90% of campus sexual assault reports “fall into the category of, ‘We were both drunk, we 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.'”

Throughout the 2024 campaign trail, Trump cozied up to prominent anti-feminist, manosphere influencers, and his reinstated campus sexual assault guidelines are practically catnip for these communities. These influencers, led by serially accused rapist Andrew Tate, have popularized men’s rights talking points about how women accuse men of violence solely to ruin their lives and erect a matriarchal society. Trump’s guidelines from 2017, which appear to have been co-written by men’s rights groups like the National Coalition for Men Carolinas and the insidiously named Families Advocating for Campus Equality, malign any protections for survivors as attacks on men writ large.

The Trump administration has thus far patted itself on the back—particularly for writing queer and trans students out of key protections: “Under the Trump Administration, the Education Department will champion equal opportunity for all Americans, including women and girls, by protecting their right to safe and separate facilities and activities in schools, colleges and universities,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.

An estimated one in four women undergraduates is victimized by sexual assault—an act perpetrated by one in 10 male college students. Universities suspend just one of every 12,400 students each year for sexual misconduct offenses and expel one in 22,900, USA Today reported in 2023. Despite conservative narratives that female students falsely report male students in pursuit of benefits and privileges, the reporting process is often so burdensome and retraumatizing that 39% of student survivors report taking a leave of absence, transferring, or dropping out of school. You’ll find men’s rights activists often leave out those details.