Due Process At Risk in Efforts Against Campus Rape, Cathy Young Writes in Time

Sexual
assault on college campus is a disturbing headline-grabber, these
days. But, as is often the case during public policy panics, not
every response is a good one.
Writing in Time, Reason contributing editor Cathy
Young warns that the White House’s initiative against campus rape
runs the risk of turning its back on due process and protections
for the accused.

Even in smaller numbers, sexual assault on campus is a cause for
concern. But the government’s quest to address it creates new
troubling issues.

Thus, since 2011, the Department of Education has recommended
that colleges use the lowest burden of proof—“preponderance of the
evidence,” which means a finding of guilt if one feels the evidence
tips even slightly toward the complainant—in disciplinary
proceedings on sexual assault. (Traditionally, charges of student
misconduct have been judged by the higher standard of “clear and
convincing evidence.”) The new guidelines make this a requirement;
they also encourage “juries” with no student participation and even
a shift to a single-investigator process.

Missing is virtually any recognition of the need for fairness to
the accused. The recent White House Council on Women and Girls
report on sexual assault dismisses false accusations as a “myth,”
citing a 2010 article by University of Massachusetts Boston
psychologist David Lisak that concluded that “only 2-10% of
reported rapes are false.” Yet a 10% error rate is hardly trivial.
This estimate also refers only to proven fabrications; no one knows
how many unresolved charges, nearly half of Lisak’s university
sample, may be false. And people may be wrongly accused because of
confusion rather than deliberate lies—especially when drinking is
involved.

Read the
whole article here.