#BELIEVEWomen Is In a State Of Legal Collapse
When future historians reflect back on our present moment, it’s entirely possible that liberal California judges, rather than the Trump administration, will get credit for pulling the plug on the progressive experiment of denying basic due-process rights to American male college students. That’s the takeaway from a stunning Los Angeles Times report from late last week. California’s university justice system — by far the largest in the United States — is reeling not because of Trump’s Department of Education but because of a series of rulings from California courts. Colleges and universities across California are scrambling to revise the way they handle sexual misconduct cases after a state appellate court ruled that “fundamental fairness” requires that accused students have a right to a hearing and to cross-examine their accusers…The California State system, for example, has “stopped proceedings in 75 cases.” Other colleges in the state are rapidly revising their policies.
The legal straw that broke the camel’s back was a ruling from California’s Second Appellate District in a case brought by former University of Southern California tight end Bryce Dixon. The court found that when a student faces “severe disciplinary sanctions,” and when witness credibility is “central to the adjudication of the allegation,”
. . fundamental fairness requires, at a minimum, that the university provide a mechanism by which the accused may cross-examine those witnesses, directly or indirectly, at a hearing in which the witnesses appear in person or by other means (such as means provided by technology like videoconferencing) before a neutral adjudicator with the power independently to find facts and make credibility assessments.
In plain language, the court’s ruling requires schools to afford accused students basic due-process rights, restoring a system of justice that existed for centuries before #BelieveWomen corrupted the legal landscape.
nationalreview.com -David French
