The string of higher-education lawsuits over alleged violations of due process in sexual-assault cases is no surprise (“More Men Fight College Allegations of Sexual Assault,” U.S. News, March 20). College professors and deans lack the training and experience to investigate and fairly determine guilt and innocence. Charges of such major crimes are properly the domain of police and the courts.
The federal government has placed colleges in an impossible position. Title IX enforcers threaten schools for not aggressively prosecuting cases independent of the criminal-justice system. But bungled cases mean that the guilty walk and the innocent suffer, and that colleges will pay the price in civil lawsuits. The heavy burden—and responsibility—of playing detective, judge and jury in these serious matters is not one colleges could ever competently undertake.
In the important campaign to end sexual assault on campus, due-process rights remain the bulwark of a just and lawful society. It is ironic that the courts may have to teach that lesson to the federal government.
Michael Poliakoff
American Council of
Trustees and Alumni
Washington
On July 12, ACTA sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions as they met to interview Ms. Catherine E. Lhamon on her nomination to be Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education. This letter was sent to educate the Committee on the importance of due process […]
The 18th-century British jurist William Blackstone pronounced, “It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.” There are few principles of law we hold more sacred than “innocent until proven guilty.” For most of the last decade, however, this doctrine has had negligible impact in matters of campus sexual assault. There […]
WASHINGTON, DC—The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) today praised the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to replace its current guidance on campus sexual assault and submit new guidance to a formal notice-and-comment period. Known as the “Dear Colleague Letter,” the 2011 guidance from the Department of Education outlined how colleges should handle campus […]
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