The biggest problem with Rep. Jared Polis' sex assault comments

Article here. Excerpt:

'Colorado Congressman Jared Polis' comments about expelling students merely accused of sexual assault weren't just an affront to the American justice system, they were also incoherent.

At his Washington Post blog "The Volokh Conspiracy," Eugene Volokh summed up Polis' view: "If there are 10 people who have been accused, and under a reasonable likelihood standard maybe one or two did it, it seems better to get rid of all 10 people."

Volokh, a professor of free speech law, wrote that while a "whiff of suspicion" may sometimes be enough to remove someone from his or her current position, he "just hadn't thought that being a college student would or should be one of them."

Polis had followed up his statement about expelling students with the claim that "We're not talking about depriving them of life or liberty, we're talking about them being transferred to another university, for crying out loud."

Using Polis' logic, innocent students would be expelled and have their education disrupted or stopped entirely. Meanwhile, some actual rapists would be free to prey on students at another campus.

Such is the conundrum faced by current activists fighting to make it easier for those accused of sexual assault to be expelled. On the one hand, they say sexual assault is a serious issue — a crime even — and that accused students should be expelled based on little evidence and without due process protections. On the other hand, they say being expelled from college isn't that big of a deal.

They can't have it both ways. Now, for a wrongly accused student, an expulsion is a huge deprivation. It means lost tuition, lost friends, lost education, lost time and an unclear future. But for rapists, an expulsion means they're free to prey on non-students (or students at another university).'