A HISTORY: Campus Kangaroo Courts. Blame Colleges, Not just the Federal Government
Serving on a panel that hears Title IX sexual-assault complaints on college campuses sounds like a full-time job. Schools may lament that this training is both time-consuming and costly, but they have only themselves to blame. Sure, the federal government imposes these requirements today, but it was colleges that started us down this road…Disciplinary panels were set up in the ’60s and ’70s to adjudicate violations of schools’ honor codes, such as plagiarism. But as university faculty and administration began to see their role as more expansive, these panels experienced “mission creep” and started hearing cases of actual crimes. The results of these training efforts have been predictable. As Stuart Taylor and K. C. Johnson, the authors of The Campus Rape Frenzy, wrote last year, “Since nothing in the experience of most academics prepares them to competently investigate an offense that’s a felony in all 50 states, it makes sense to train those who are assigned to investigate campus sexual-assault allegations. But the ideological regimes used on many campuses are designed more to stack the deck against accused students than to ensure a fair inquiry.” For instance, rather than being told that a suspect is innocent until proven guilty, some of these panelists are presented with documents suggesting the accused are probably guilty. Some administrators are finally seeing the folly in trying to teach 19-year-old drama majors and busy research faculty to properly adjudicate these cases.
nationalreview.com By Naomi Schaefer Riley
