Innocent until proven guilty? Not under ‘yes means yes.’

October 14, 2015

Fearful of being sued by the federal government, many schools have made it easier both to report accusations of sexual assault (a good thing) and to find a student guilty based on low standards of proof (a bad thing)…many schools are willing to deliver a guilty verdict and permit punishment to be imposed based on a mere preponderance of the evidence: a showing that there is no more than a 51 percent likelihood that the assault occurred… for every 100 students who are disciplined under this standard, as many as 49 of them may well be innocent. That ratio is unacceptable in any civilized society that cares about the rule of law and the principle of fairness.

washingtonpost.com By Alan Dershowitz