The Accused Push Back

For John, BLUF:  These days you have to know your rights and have a lawyer.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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It isn't like this is a revelation, but the front page (below the fold) of The Boston Globe has this headline, "Students fight sexual assault accusations".

Following a rise in reports of sexual assaults at colleges, a growing number of alleged assailants — including some at area schools — are pushing back, saying they have been falsely accused amid the heightened awareness sweeping the nation’s campuses.

The suspected assailants —who have been put on probation at the schools, suspended, or expelled — are appealing the disciplinary rulings and filing lawsuits asserting that college administrators unfairly rushed to judgment in their cases.  They say the decisions have damaged their reputation, disrupted their education, and in some cases cost them thousands of dollars in lost tuition, legal expenses, and other costs.

The accused students are even pushing back citing "...Title IX, the very federal gender-discrimination law that many alleged victims have cited…".

There is this issue:

Accused students often expect to be held to the criminal standard of evidence, that it was “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they had committed a crime.  However, the US Education Department actually advises colleges to use a lower standard of proof, a “preponderance of the evidence” in adjudicating the cases administratively.

OK.  Can the student demand a legal trial?  I realize that being expelled from college may be a lesser punishment than five years in jail, but if you feel you are innocent it might be worth the rolling of the dice.

When I entered the search engine of The Boston Globe with the article headline from the dead tree edition the first article it kicked up was "Some schools remain hostile to victims, official testifies".  The article discussed testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee by Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Ms Catherine Lhamon.♠

Alexander♥ also questioned Lhamon about the source of the authority for her office to issue guidance to colleges and universities about how to handle such cases.  She said she was given such authority by way of her appointment.

I find that a strange, non-Constitutional, grant of authority.  It is sort of Nixon-like.♦

At the end of the day it seems that one of the ways Senator E Warren can help reduce the crushing student costs and debt would be to encourage colleges and universities to pass the issues of investigation and punishment over to the local community police forces and district attorneys.  I realize it would be cost shifting, but it would also put the job where it belongs.  Having colleges and universities hire people to police others, and hire them for skills other than law and law enforcement just seems wrong.  And, if this catches on it could become a trend, downloading other responsibilities from the academic world and letting them get back to education.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  I fully agree we need to be ensuring Civil Rights, but I would have thought that such issue would be referred to the Department of Justice (notwithstanding the current Attorney General's biased dealing in that area).  An Assistant Secretary in another Department, with horse holders, seems like overkill.
♥  That would be Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), himself a former Secretary of Education.
♦  "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."  Former President Richard M. Nixon, TV interview with David Frost, May 20, 1977.