College Administrators Need Refresher Course in Due Process Under the Law

Submitted by Mastodon on Fri, 2014-08-29 09:25

Article here. Excerpt:

'There is more than college football on the minds of university administrators and students as the fall semester begins. Many large and small universities are finding themselves acting as judge and jury to consider allegations of sexual misconduct. The rush to judgment, in which there is a presumption of guilt upon the accused, ignores the judicial tradition of due process and innocent until proven guilty, is due in part to a bill before the U.S. Congress and a White House task force charged with investigating ways to prevent campus sexual assaults. These actions are focusing national attention on an issue academia would prefer to keep within the confines of their ivy covered walls.
...
Joining the fray, and stirring the proverbial tempest in a teapot, is Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) who recently introduced the Campus Accountability and Safety Act (CASA), which even victim of assaults organizations view as one-sided and denying due process to the accused. CASA would limit the right of law enforcement officials to investigate sexual assault allegations, unless and until the accuser agrees. This means campus disciplinary panels can control the destiny of the accused, even when they lack the qualifications to make a fair judgment. At one college, The Director of Food Services was drafted from the campus cafeteria to determine whether an occasion of drunken sex between two students rose to the level of rape.'

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

If it's been said once, 'tis been said 10,000 times: Allegations of assault of any kind are criminal matters not fit for contrived pseudo-courts. Incomprehensible to me is a legislature seeking to curb the authority of law enforcement to investigate allegations of actual alleged crimes. In that way, due process for the accuser, not the accused, is what's being circumvented. As for the matter of the accused's due process rights, when not being tried in a court, the principle is non-applicable. A student disciplinary hearing of any kind is not subject to the US Con'n's due process guarantee since it applies only to ppl accused by the gov't of a crime. This new law would keep alleged sexual assailants *out* of courtrooms, not put them in them. And of course it also insists that colleges receiving federal money from whatever sources adopt the gov't's req'ts around how things like sexual assault are defined. So really, the due process issue here rests with the curtailing of police investigatory powers, which affects most directly the recourse avail. to the accuser. And for the accused, he's in effect presumed guilty at the start, since by preponderance the only evidence is the accuser's complaint. The accused has nothing to begin with except a denial, which only occurs after the accusation is made. Thus if a judgment had to be made immed. after the complaint is made, the accused'd be found guilty based on preponderance. This is why I think the accused is, even procedurally, presumed guilty.

Remember the movie "No Country For Old Men"? Looks like colleges are in their advanced stages of becoming "no country for young men".

Like0 Dislike0
Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2014-08-30 14:55