By Ashe Schow
Monday, October 23, 2017
Many times throughout history societies cast aside the
idea of due process, such as during the Salem witch trials and the 1980s and
’90s satanic day care scares. In each case, those accused were not given a
proper chance to defend themselves, and society was told to “believe the
victim.”
Such has been the case in recent years on college
campuses. We’re told college women face the possibility of being sexually
assault on par with the frequency of war-torn Congo. We’re told that false
accusations are so rare we should just ignore their potential. And we’re told
that if we don’t outright believe all accusers, we’re rape apologists. Due
process, we’re told, hurts victims (but only on college campuses or in matters
of sex; all other crimes require due process).
The recent hatred for due process grew after President
Barack Obama’s Education Department issued guidance in 2011 about how schools
should handle accusations of sexual assault. The guidance all but assured
accused students would be found responsible, even going so far as to suggest
cross-examination shouldn’t be allowed because it might re-traumatize victims.
This, of course, ignored the fact that cross-examination is the most effective
tool to determine whether someone actually is a victim.
Hysteria ensued. If someone accused of sexual assault
wasn’t punished on a college campus, activists claimed the school didn’t take
accusations seriously. When President Donald Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy
DeVos rescinded the Obama-era guidelines, activists claimed she was rolling
back victims’ rights (when she was actually attempting to add rights for the
accused, as well as accusers).
Is the Tide
Turning?
But due process appears to be making a comeback. By K.C.
Johnson’s count
as of Sepember 8, 59 accused students had received at least partially
favorable rulings from judges after they sued their schools for gender-bias and
denying due process. I believe this count is now over 60.
Some of these judges decried schools shifting the burden
of proof onto accused students, some stated cross-examination was essential,
others noted the potential ramifications for expelled students that activists
seem to ignore, and others simply said the campus kangaroo courts were
“unfair.” These are just four examples of due process wins for students, but
there are dozens more.
Those are just the judicial wins. Accused students have
been racking up settlements with their universities for years, with a seeming
uptick in 2017. Some of the settlements came from high-profile cases, like
Columbia University settling with the man accused by “Mattress Girl.”
With court wins in the background, DeVos rescinded the
Obama-era guidance that led to this chaos and denial of civil rights for
accused students. She promised to create guidance using the proper
notice-and-comment period that Obama’s education department had ignored. She
promised to hear from all parties with related interests, including victims and
self-described victims, accused students, lawyers, schools, and others. The
system she hopes to create will benefit both accusers and the accused, neither
of whom are being served well now.
Even California
Lawmakers Are Expressing Concern
Now, another big win for due process comes from an
unlikely source. California Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation that, frankly,
all of us due-process defenders thought he would sign. Senate Bill 169 codified
the Obama-era directives to universities. The bill passed both houses of the
California state legislature, and was sitting on Brown’s desk. Shockingly,
Brown mentioned due process concerns as his reason for vetoing.
Back in 2014, Brown signed a destructive “yes means yes”
consent law that forced college students to live by a different and unworkable
definition of consent than the general population does. The bill seemed simple
enough, telling students to make sure they have clear consent before engaging
in sexual activity. But the language defines nearly all sex as rape, unless
both parties (although only one is typically held accountable to this standard,
usually the man) constantly ask and agree to sexual activity.
It basically turns sex into a question-and-answer session
and does nothing to help accusers prove they were raped. The incident would
still be a he said/she said situation, yet under the affirmative consent
standards, men were unfairly burdened with having to prove a negative—that they
didn’t commit rape.
In his veto letter, Brown acknowledged the flaws in
current campus policies: “Since this law was enacted, however, thoughtful legal
minds have increasingly questioned whether federal and state actions to prevent
and redress sexual harassment and assault – well-intentioned as they are – have
also unintentionally resulted in some colleges’ failure to uphold due process
for accused students,” Brown wrote. “Depriving any student of higher education
opportunities should not be done lightly, or out of fear of losing state or
federal funding.”
He also wrote that he was “not prepared to codify
additional requirements in reaction to a shifting federal landscape, when we
haven’t yet ascertained the full impact of what we recently enacted.” He added
that the state didn’t know how many expulsions have resulted or what the
circumstance behind the expulsions were, nor the potential “disproportionate
impact on race or ethnicity.” He is the first previous supporter of Obama-era
guidance to urge caution and note the racial disparity in campus tribunals
(many minorities are being accused by white women).
It looks like hysteria over civil rights for accused
students could be dying down. It’ll take a while to fix a culture that devalues
due process, but we appear to be on the right path.
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