...I warned at the time that students falsely accused could see their lives upended and possibly destroyed. Clearly, if a student has committed a crime or serious offense, the university has a duty to investigate. But serious charges, which can blight careers, require serious guarantees of the rights of the accused. In a court of law, a defendant has the right to confront witnesses against him, the right to see any exculpatory evidence the state discovers, the right to be represented by counsel and the presumption of innocence. In felony cases, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.
No such safeguards are available to accused college students. As self-described feminist Judith Grossman discovered to her horror when her son was falsely accused of "non-consensual sex" by a former girlfriend, "the
Department of Education's OCR has obliterated the presumption of innocence that is so foundational to our traditions of justice." Grossman recounted that her son was denied counsel, subjected to a two-hour long inquisition, refused the opportunity to present evidence (in the form of emails from the former girlfriend and other documents) and denied the opportunity to question witnesses against him. Thanks to Grossman's legal expertise and assistance, her son was eventually cleared. Other students are not so fortunate.
Following the Education Department's directive, the University of Hawaii announced that students may be evicted from dormitories after no more than an accusation. At Yale, an unsubstantiated charge of sexual assault against a star football player was enough to deny him a Rhodes scholarship. At Xavier University, a student who was found not guilty of sexual assault by a judge was nonetheless told by the university that he would be prohibited from participating in classes or extracurricular activities with his "victim." Caleb Warner was banned from the campuses of the University of North Dakota for three years. When police investigated the case, they issued an arrest warrant for his accuser, charging her with making a false rape charge. Only after repeated interventions on Warner's behalf by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) did the university finally admit that the charges were without foundation.
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The reasonable person standard is now gone. The new definition of sexual harassment decreed by the Obama administration is "any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature," including "verbal conduct." The purported victim now has the power to decide whether a young man or woman (but it's nearly always a man) is branded a sexual harasser. It's entirely subjective....
Sexual crimes back to bite and who wants free speech?
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Originally Posted by Kathianne
