Trump Weakens Title IX Rules Amid Cornell Gang Rape Investigation

The Trump administration has moved to cripple Title IX protections against sexual assault and harassment on the same day New York prosecutors reopened the investigation into heinous allegations of a fraternity gang rape at Cornell University. 

On Monday, the Education Department rescinded a 2024 Title IX rule enacted by former President Joe Biden that required schools to move proactively on sexual assault harassment cases, calling on them to strengthen and specify their protections for campus survivors. It also extended protections for LGBTQ students as well as those who were pregnant or a parent. Now that has all been scrapped because the department doesn’t think the requirements are “enforceable nationwide.” 

The timing couldn’t be worse. On Monday, New York state prosecutors reopened an investigation into the alleged 2024 gang rape. The victim filed a lawsuit last week against members of the Chi Phi fraternity for allegedly raping her—and against Cornell University for failing to adequately protect her and discipline the fraternity members. The victim, Jane Doe, said that after leaving a bar she “stumbled alone” to Chi Phi’s  fraternity house around 11 p.m., became intoxicated, and was pressured by the members to snort what fraternity brothers told her was ketamine. She also smoked marijuana and drank more liquor. She was propositioned for a threesome by two of the brothers, even as the lawsuit alleges she was “incapable of consenting.” 

After that encounter, at about 1:42 a.m., one of the defendants texted a Chi Phi Snapchat groupchat telling his brothers that there was “free pussy” at the fraternity house. Jane Doe says she was then raped for hours by seven fraternity brothers. Aside from alleged forced oral and vaginal intercourse, they also allegedly snorted ketamine off of Jane Doe’s body. She said she was completely incapacitated at this point, with the alleged assault lasting until nearly 6 a.m. the next morning. 

Doe filed a report in November 2024. Cornell University conducted an internal investigation, barred the fraternity but only suspended the defendants, giving them the option to write essays to lessen their punishment rather than expelling them. None were arrested, and Doe dropped out of Cornell shortly afterward. Matthew Ingalls, Jonathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris, and Scott Kretzschmar are the Chi Phi members named in the lawsuit. 

“The Cornell University case is a devastating example of why robust federal Title IX enforcement matters,” said Shiwali Patel of the National Women’s Law Center. “Sexual harassment and assault continue to be pervasive in schools and, to the fullest extent possible, we should be working to enforce the laws that protect student survivors of sexual violence. Yet Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the Trump administration have decided to ignore what survivors need, instead weaponizing Title IX to attack trans students.” 

“While the administration is unlawfully eroding protections for trans students under the guise of ‘protecting women and girls,’ they are systematically weakening the very laws that keep students safe and schools accountable,” she added.

New York prosecutors are now reconsidering criminal charges against the defendants. 

The Trump administration is flip-flopping on how to manage its mass deportation policy ahead of the midterm elections.

Sources at ICE told CBS News’s Camilo Montoya-Galvez that officers had received guidance to limit arrests to individuals with criminal histories—but that policy was quickly rolled back.

“The backdrop here is important,” Montoya-Galvez wrote on X. “Ahead of the midterms, some GOP lawmakers and business leaders have been expressing concerns about the political and economic consequences of ICE’s crackdown.”

It appears that some Republicans are finally seeing how ICE’s operations in their home states might hurt them on Election Day. Last week, Kansas Senator Roger Marshall issued a rare rebuke of ICE after a series of surprise raids in his state sparked protests and business closures.

Marshall was among the majority of Republicans who spent months blocking even the most modest reforms for ICE but saw a dip in the polls ahead of his statement.

This isn’t the first time that cracks have appeared in enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security.

After two deadly incidents in July, the Trump administration issued a temporary pause on traffic stops, and then rescinded that policy just one day later.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reportedly never received the White House’s blessing before announcing the sudden policy change—leaving President Donald Trump and border czar Tom Homan in the dark. Trump was reportedly furious, believing that it signaled the administration was softening on immigration enforcement.

But increasingly, voters are finding that Trump’s immigration policies have gone too far.

Senator John Fetterman seemed to forget where he stands politically over the weekend.

At the Texas Tribune Festival Saturday, the Pennsylvania Democrat was asked why he wouldn’t become an independent considering the stances and votes he has taken in defiance of the Democratic Party. 

“Because I’m a lifelong Republican,” Fetterman responded. 

“Democrat,” CBS News correspondent Major Garrett corrected him as the audience gasped and laughed. “That’s a moment right there, that’s clippable, ladies and gentlemen!”

“Yeah, I’m a lifelong Democrat, though,” Fetterman said sheepishly as some in the audience jeered. 

It was quite the revelatory gaffe for Fetterman, who has confirmed President Trump’s nominees, voted to reopen the government, and helped thwart multiple resolutions seeking to end the Iran war. The Pennsylvania senator is facing renewed calls to step down from Democrats in his home state after a Wall Street Journal article earlier this month reported that he has blown off meetings with disabled veterans, families of slain police officers, children’s hospital officials, and numerous constituents in the past two years.  

In 2028, Fetterman is up for reelection, and several Democrats will likely launch primary challenges against the incumbent senator. Several of them have not hesitated to attack Fetterman, with Representative Brendan Boyle calling him a “disgrace” and former Representative Conor Lamb, who lost to Fetterman in the 2022 Senate primary, saying that he should “just quit.”  

“John, if there is a decent bone left in your body, just quit. It’s an insult to decent people in our state for you to treat them and the office this way,” Lamb posted on X. 

Fetterman’s turn toward the right is getting him attention from all the wrong places. He made a surprise cameo at the Republicans’ midterm convention, and he’s become a right-wing media darling at places such as Fox News, which caters to his vehement pro-Israel views. Meanwhile, his Pennsylvania constituents are being ignored. 

Selling weapons to China is suddenly off the table. It’s unclear how it got on the table in the first place.

U.S. Ambassador David Perdue told Fox News Sunday that “President Trump continues to say: Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,” and that “he actually asked [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] would he like to buy some at one point.”

But hours later, the Trump administration aggressively attempted to cover its own tracks. Two U.S. officials denied any such plan while speaking with The Wall Street Journal. One source told the daily that the White House had no intentions of selling weapons to Beijing, while the other acknowledged that it’s already illegal to do so. That ban circles back to Taiwan, which relies on U.S. weapons to deter Chinese encroachment.

China has reaffirmed for years that Taiwan is an inalienable part of its territory, and that it intends to formally reunite with the island nation. More than 23 million people live in Taiwan, and its sovereignty is highly contested due to a complex history of colonization.

The U.S. has provided material defense support to Taiwan since 1979, when Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act. The law binds the U.S. to resist anything that would jeopardize Taiwan’s national security.

The White House rattled Beijing when it made an $11 billion arms sale to the island in December, with a separate $14 billion package expected down the line. Donald Trump has since held off on advancing that larger sale, despite urging from Senate Republicans ahead of Xi’s visit last week.

“It is difficult to imagine ​how the United States might credibly project influence deterrence in the Indo-Pacific if the price of keeping up diplomatic appearances ​is denying our partners key deterrent capabilities,” Senators Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, John Cornyn, and Thom Tillis wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ahead of the state visit.

Trump has not commented on the abeyance since. However, Xi made his position regarding U.S. involvement in the region abundantly clear. On Thursday, Xi told Trump that he hoped America would take the “correct position” of opposing Taiwan’s independence.

Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu commented on the summit on Saturday, telling reporters in Taipei that maintaining military sales and providing Taiwan the support to defend itself was an “important U.S. interest” due to the island’s dominating semiconductor industry, reported Reuters.

Attorney General Todd Blanche crashed and burned while trying to defend President Donald Trump’s ever-increasing restrictions on the press.

Speaking on ABC’s This Week Sunday, Blanche struggled to keep his composure while facing questions about a federal judge’s temporary injunction on Trump’s decision to ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House. 

Last week, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s decision had little to do with national security, as the Justice Department had argued in court, and that the president’s initial statements indicated that the ban stemmed from the media’s coverage of the Republican Party. 

“Well, I’m not going to get into what the judge says, the litigation is ongoing. But our position has been clear from the beginning. What they say is exactly the issue when it comes to national security,” Blanche said. 

When ABC host Martha Raddatz pressed him for a single example, Blanche appeared to claim that any negative reporting about the president was inaccurate. 

“Give you an example of when CNN doesn’t report accurately? You cannot be asking me that!” Blanche said. “They don’t even disagree. There’s not even a real dispute that the information coming out of CNN and some of these other networks is wholly and completely, almost 100 percent, negative towards the president.”

Raddatz reminded Blanche that the judge ruled that the ban had nothing to do with national security, and the attorney general doubled down.  

“At some point, the complete misinformation and the inaccuracy and the one-sided news out of certain organizations does become a national security issue and it’s not right for the people of the United States to have to put up with it,” Blanche said. 

Blanche blew up when Raddatz asked whether the Trump administration planned to screen reporters. 

“I did not say that! I did not say that! You don’t get to put words in my mouth! You don’t get to put words in my mouth! That’s not the way it works,” he cried. 

Then Blanche balked at a question about what the First Amendment meant to him, and insisted that news coverage did not have to be positive for the Trump administration. 

“But you heard what the president said: ‘They want to try to diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration,’” Raddatz said. 

“For you to pick out seven words and say, ‘Oh, that’s what the president means,’ that’s extraordinarily disingenuous,” Blanche said. 

Clearly, the Trump administration simply can’t stand when the press reports on what the president actually says. 

Despite the judge’s order, the Trump administration has continued to lash out at the press. Over the weekend, the president blocked CNN from traveling with him on Air Force One.