During the Obama Administration, college campuses nationwide received a “Dear Colleague” letter, detailing explicit guidelines for handling sexual assault cases among students and employees.

In September, Betsy DeVos, United States secretary of education, reversed the letter, to allow colleges to conduct investigations and disciplinary measures as they see fit.

But at Waynesburg University, according to Title IX coordinators and investigators, it is business as usual.

According to Michael Cipoletti, assistant professor of forensic science and one of Waynesburg’s Title IX investigators, the “Dear Colleague” guidelines lowered and regulated the burden of proof necessary to decide the guilt of the accused, in any given sexual assault case. The victims need only prove their story “beyond a reasonable preponderance,” meaning that the incident was more likely to have occurred than not.

The letter also gave a specific timeline for campuses to complete investigations and take appropriate action, and banned mediation, on belief that victims would feel pressured to participate.

Without the specifications, the burden of proof is to be “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and the timeline for investigations is simply “reasonably prompt.”

Campus communities across the country have responded with backlash over these potential policy adjustments—with a viral hashtag “#StopBetsy” and several Obama-era politicians speaking out against the changes. Mary Hamilla, academic and major decision counselor, has had a long career working with victims of sexual assault—which she continues to do as a counselor at Waynesburg. She said that the dissatisfaction over DeVos’s suggestions is not unfounded.

“It seems…that [DeVos] is advocating for when the final decision is made that it’s got to be more like a court of law, while now it’s just preponderance of evidence,” said Hamilla. “And in the court of law, sexual assault is so incredibly hard to prove; it just tends to be one person’s word against another, so that concerns me a lot, for victims.”

Hamilla said that raising the standard could inflict additional trauma on victims, who often wish to simply erase the incident from their memories.

“It’s already very, very difficult,” she said. “To recount what happened and to talk to people about it. And part of the problem with proof is the nature of sexual assault—almost in any case I’ve worked on…right after assault, victims all they want to do is shower and forget that it ever happened.”

As an investigator, Cipoletti understands the “gray area” surrounding sexual assault cases—navigating the nuances of intoxication and consent. He said he can easily see how the new policy could cause problems at other schools. He compared the policy to a “pendulum,” swinging too far in either direction.

“Not every sexual assault is always what we think of,” he said.

He does not foresee any changes at Waynesburg. For Cipoletti and the university’s other Title IX investigators, conducting a thorough and timely investigation has always been the priority—and that is not going to change.

“Deregulation doesn’t affect my job one bit,” he said. “We’re going to get it done as quickly and as thoroughly as we can.”

Of course, Waynesburg is a special case, said Cipoletti.

“Places like this are proactive, and I think that has something to do with the moral fabric [of Waynesburg],” he said. “We’re pretty fortunate here; we all have law enforcement backgrounds; we all follow the same internal [guidelines].”

Hamilla said that sexual assault cases at Waynesburg are “few and far between,” but the victims she has counseled have been treated fairly.

“I think Waynesburg already takes care of a lot of stuff that DeVos brought up as concerns. So, I feel like we have people who handle those cases who are well trained…doing the investigations and working as a panel on decisions instead of just one person. And the investigations are—in my experience with it—very, very thorough. And very professional and fair to both parties.”