After UVA fiasco, some colleges consider providing lawyers to students accused of sex assault

Article here. Excerpt:

'Dozens of state legislatures are rushing this year to crack down on college sexual assault, but only a few of them are also moving to protect the rights of the accused.

This includes Arkansas, where students now have the right to bring an attorney when appealing a nonacademic suspension or expulsion, thanks to legislation that became law last week. The North Dakota legislature is expected to follow shortly with its own bill allowing students the right to retain lawyers in disciplinary hearings.

“It really is a good, refreshing change of direction,” said Joseph Cohn, legislative and policy director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “I think it acknowledges that legislators are coming around to the point that we can’t continue to expel students under charges of felony conduct without providing them a right to a lawyer first.”

Concerns about due process on campus have soared as universities come under pressure from the Obama administration to prove they’re clamping down on sexual assault. The discredited Rolling Stone story about a University of Virginia fraternity rape has done little to slow the push for tougher disciplinary measures to combat what activists call the “rape culture on campus.”

That includes this year’s legislative push in a half-dozen states for affirmative consent laws, which require the accused in college sex-assault cases to prove that the accuser consented to the sexual activity.
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An additional bill now under consideration requires a minimum two-year suspension for any student found responsible for such assaults.'