FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Cynthia P Garrett or Alison Scott, Co Presidents

Families Advocating for Campus Equality
Email: contact@facecampusequality.org
Website: https://www.facecampusequality.org
Phone: (701)491-8554

GOVERNOR BROWN, PLEASE VETO SB-169; WE CAN DO BETTER

Santa Barbara, CA - October 13, 2017- FACE asks California Governor Brown to Veto
SB-169, Codifying Rescinded U.S. Education Department Office for Civil Rights Guidance

Dear Governor Brown,

I am a long time California resident, attorney and Co President of Families Advocating for
Campus Equality (FACE), a nonprofit formed to provide support and advocacy to innocent
students wrongfully suspended or expelled from their college and university campuses
following Title IX disciplinary proceedings.

Today I am asking you please, please veto SB-169.

Do not stop reading because you think you know what I'm about to say, because you do not
know the half of what I have seen, and how many times I have been brought to tears by the
destruction the Title IX machine has left in its wake.

Most Americans would be stunned to learn how Title IX disciplinary processes are conducted
on many campuses, and those who have learned cannot fathom that such Kafkaesque "trials"
are allowed to occur in our country, land of the free and fair.

In the past three-plus years hundreds of students and some professors have contacted FACE
after experiencing result-driven Title IX disciplinary processes in which school officials have:
refused to disclose details of the conduct of which they've been accused; denied them access
to the very same evidence relied on to find them responsible; refused them the opportunity to
question their accusers and witnesses; relied on hearsay and other evidence inadmissible in
any other adjudicatory arena; ignored their lack of harmful intent or good faith beliefs; and
dispensed with any presumption that the student may actually be innocent.

Denied the protections which normally accompany the use of the required (under California
law) preponderance standard of evidence, innocent students are routinely found "more likely
than not" to have committed what, more often than not, is not a crime, but a technical
violation of the school's conduct code. For this they earn lengthy suspensions or expulsions.
Though FACE representatives met personally with the SB-169's sponsor Sen. Jackson, the
Senator refused to acknowledge or even consider that students most tragically affected by these
one-sided proceedings are the underserved, minorities and scholarship students, most of whom
have worked diligently to rise above the circumstances into which they were born.

When faced with Title IX investigations, these innocent students believed the advice,
variations of which theyve heard their entire lives, that they should "just tell the truth and
you'll be fine."

Unfortunately, these young students - often just 18 or 19 years old - are blindsided by
experienced campus attorneys and administrators who effectively act as their prosecutor,
compiling evidence and testimony only to establish their guilt, while denying them access to
an equivalently experienced advocate or attorney because their families do not have the
resources to retain one. Imagine constructing your own defense at that age. The consequences
of this David v. Goliath farce are students left with no opportunity to complete their education,
loss of a promised career and significant loans to pay for a diploma they will never receive.

No wonder an African American mother told me that, to them, "it's just more of the same."

Perhaps even more tragically, the foundation on which these students have relied since
childhood, the promise of a better future and their belief in the American sense of justice, is
destroyed. Disturbingly, many attempt suicide, some successfully, many, many are
hospitalized and most suffer significant life-long trauma, PTSD and anxiety. Some have
psychotic breakdowns and, in at least one case, a California college student developed
schizophrenia, documented to have occurred as a direct result of the traumatic Title IX
process he endured at his college.

When will this stop?

When will our representatives realize the lives of our children are being lost, destroyed,
permanently and irrevocably changed?

When will our legislators take off their political hats and, as human beings, open their eyes to see
the resulting destruction of promising young, innocent lives, not only in California but across this
entire country?

Governor Brown, will you be the hero who opens your eyes to help stop this madness?

Sincerely,

Cynthia P Garrett
FACE Co President