Kirsten Gillibrand claims her bill gives equal rights to accusers and accused, but it doesn't

Article here. Excerpt:

'During a Washington Post symposium on campus sexual assault Wednesday (which included no speakers advocating for due process), Gillibrand was asked if the bill she has introduced — the Campus Accountability and Safety Act — takes into account the rights of accused students. Gillibrand responded with an emphatic "absolutely" before claiming that she and her Senate colleagues worked with accused students while crafting the bill.

"[We] made sure that they had the same rights of representation as someone who was alleging the crime," Gillibrand said. "And so, all notice requirements are for both, all representational requirements — that you can have someone by your side representing you — are for both."

This is not accurate. Gillibrand's bill does not specifically lay out what rights accusers (the bill calls them "victims" throughout, except for once, illustrating a clear bias) and the accused have. It states only that schools must provide each student with written notice of the process to provide them "with the opportunity to meaningfully exercise the due process rights afforded to them under institutional policy."

Due process rights are mentioned elsewhere in the bill as being provided by a certain section in the Higher Education Act of 1965. That section calls for a supposedly "fair and impartial investigation" conducted by minimally trained campus administrators (more on that later). It also calls for both students to be notified of the process and outcome of the investigation and allows them to have "others" present at the disciplinary hearing.

The idea that Gillibrand's bill advances the rights of accused students was challenged by Joe Cohn, the legislative and policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an organization that has been working hard to ensure that students are provided their due process rights.'