Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast. My name is Freddie Gray. I'm the deputy editor of the

spectator and the editor of its US edition. We thought that 2020 was going to be all about the

presidential election, but now it will forever be the year of the pandemic.

So instead, Americano is going to look at how COVID-19 is transforming the United States and its politics.

There's a lot to talk about, perhaps even more so than before. So please keep tuning in.

I'm joined today by Kate Andrews, who is the spectator's economics correspondent, and we're

going to be asking, would Joe Biden pass a Title IX investigation or case? Kate, for our British

listeners, who probably aren't really up to speed, can you explain what Title IX is and why it's in the

news today in relation to Joe Biden?

So what we're looking at specifically is the guidance that was issued during the Obama

administration to college campuses around how they should handle accusations of sexual

misconduct, assault or rape. And the guidance was hugely weighted towards the accuser. The person who

believed that they were the victim in the situation was to be believed by the administration

essentially regardless of the evidence around it. So it would happen very often that the accused,

and that was usually a man, would come into an unregulated

tribunal in which they would be suspended or expelled, and they wouldn't be able to see the

evidence against them. There wouldn't be any cross-examination of the accuser, not by the

accused, but by anybody. And it was resulting in plenty of lawsuits, as you can imagine,

because across the country you had men accused of sexual assault, and it didn't matter whether

or not the police thought there was evidence to uphold this. College campuses would take the

side of the accuser with or without the evidence. So the education secretary, Betsy DeVos,

has changed some of that guidance and brought in new regulations. She's more narrowly defined

...