Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said Wednesday he’ll be tougher on how higher education handles sexual assaults and harassment than he says the federal government is prepared to do.

Weiser, a Democrat and former University of Colorado law school dean, challenged policies announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Education on how the federal Title IX cases are handled by colleges and universities. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the rules are aimed at being fair to all involved. Weiser disagrees.

“The new rules mandated by the federal government threaten to prevent or discourage victims from coming forward and receiving the justice and protection they deserve,” he said in a statement. “Colorado institutions of higher education have effective policies and procedures in place that offer safety and support for sexual assault and harassment survivors and respect due process for the accused.

“Our state colleges and universities should not be forced to choose between keeping policies that work and losing critical federal funding if they do not adopt an untested approach dictated by the federal government.”

He said the new federal rules would be disruptive to institutions that rely on Title IX funding, while adding administrative costs during lean budget times.

“In Colorado, we are standing up against this unwise and unjust federal preemption of our authority that would replace our time-tested Colorado-based approaches with an untested plan developed at the federal level,” Weiser stated. “Our institutions of higher education are dedicated to maintaining the sound policies, procedures and state laws currently in place, and we will fight in court for their flexibility to do so.”

The Department of Education, however, sees the work of DeVos as strengthening protections for victims, holding schools accountable for failure to respond equitably and promptly to allegations with “a more reliable adjudication process that is fair to all students,” based on “input from survivors, advocates, falsely accused students, school administrators, including more than 124,000 public comments.

Allowing victims to decide how a school responds to an incident is among the benefits of the new rules cited by the Department of Education on Wednesday.

“Too many students have lost access to their education because their school inadequately responded when a student filed a complaint of sexual harassment or sexual assault,” DeVos said in a statement. “This new regulation requires schools to act in meaningful ways to support survivors of sexual misconduct, without sacrificing important safeguards to ensure a fair and transparent process.

“We can and must continue to fight sexual misconduct in our nation’s schools, and this rule makes certain that fight continues.”

Read more about the new rules by clicking here.