The U.S. Education Department returned its decision on the Title IX probe at Harvard Law, ruling that the school broke federal law in their sexual assault policies.

According to the Huffington Post, the ED's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) determined that Harvard Law gave more rights to those accused of sexual assault than to the victims. The OCR opened their investigation in Dec. 2010 and concluded it on Dec. 23 of this year.

In two complaints, the ED found Harvard Law at fault for being unfair to the complainant.

In the first instance, the school gave the accused person a supplemental hearing in which that person was allowed to make a testimony and be represented by an attorney. But Harvard did not allow the complainant the same rights and took 13 months to return their ruling.

In the second instance, the ED found Harvard Law to have classified their burden of proof as "clear and convincing" evidence. That would violate the federally mandated "preponderance of the evidence" standard.

This newly released ruling is not to be confused with a separate Title IX probe the OCR is currently conducting at Harvard College, the Ivy League institution's undergraduate school. Students at Harvard have been advocating this academic year for a new policy that emulates California's "Yes Means Yes" policy that is currently catching on in other states as well.

The school passed a new policy on sexual harassment and sexual assault in the summer and Harvard Law professors later wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe publicly opposing it. They argued that Harvard's new policy and others sweeping the nation are unfair to the accused and unfairly lower the burden of proof.

An attorney at the helm of the 2010 complaint agains Harvard Law, Wendy Murphy told the HP the most recent decision at Harvard Law, the ED's sixth of this year, should turn some heads. In the movement to reform campus sexual assault, she said it would take the nation's most recognizable campuses to bring attention to the issue.

"When Harvard gets in trouble, everyone pays attention," Murphy said, "and unlike changes at lower-tiered schools, change at the top trickles down, so it's a particularly important case."