Legislative rush on campus sexual assault threatens student rights

Article here. Excerpt:

'CASA’s faith in self-interested campus judiciaries stands in stark contrast to recent efforts to address sexual assault in the military. In that context, Gillibrand and McCaskill argued that only impartial civil courts could secure justice.

And CASA’s most dangerous component provides OCR with a distorting incentive to wield its enforcement power against colleges and universities. CASA would empower OCR to impose fines equal to 1 percent of an institution’s entire operating budget for each Title IX “violation or failure” it found—and to keep the money for itself. This could be crippling. Last summer, for example, OCR found the University of Montana had committed 40 Title IX violations—a staggering potential loss of $160 million under CASA. Finding a single violation at Penn State could net OCR more than $45 million; finding 40 at Harvard could net 

Allowing OCR to self-fund by fining institutions for violations will only accelerate the rush to judgment in campus hearings, pushing campus administrators even further towards abandoning due process altogether. Already, college attorneys have admitted that pressure from OCR has prompted unjust outcomes. The National Center for Higher Education Risk Management acknowledged in a recent open letter that in “a lot” of cases, administrators are finding accused students guilty “in spite of the evidence—or the lack thereof—because they think they are supposed to, and that doing so is what OCR wants.” It’s no wonder that more than 20 students have recently filed suit against their institutions, alleging unfair campus hearings.
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So what’s the way forward on campus sexual assault? Policymakers need to recognize that college judiciaries simply aren’t equipped to handle allegations of felony misconduct. Colleges can provide counseling, resources, preventative education, and academic accommodations. But they lack the procedures to reach just results and the power required to properly punish those found guilty. Instead of creating an alternative to the criminal justice system, legislators should devote their efforts to fixing law enforcement’s handling of sexual assault.'