CALIFORNIA Senator Hannah Beth Jackson Bullies Supporters of Due Process. “Just Some Moms of Accused Students”
What happens when one party controls everything in the world’s fifth-largest economy? It buries the existence of even its opposition. Families Advocating for Campus Equality was flabbergasted to learn that its opposition letter to California’s SB-493, which would impose campus sexual misconduct policies that have been struck down in state courts, was left out of the bill record. Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson the bill sponsor and a former prosecutor, knew FACE opposed SB-493 because the group had met with her staffer on March 20, when the group distributed the letter in person to every office. She also “both raised and attempted to undermine” FACE’s arguments in its opposition letter at the April 3 hearing, FACE Co-President Cynthia Garrett said.
Those who sought to testify against the bill “were treated rudely, interrupted, and denied the full four minutes they had been allotted,” Garrett said. Families of accused students were denied the opportunity to testify. Senator Jackson made the stunning and evidence-free accusation that FACE had “lied” when it said she ignored the recommendations of a working group set up by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, who vetoed another anti-due process bill by Jackson. Her new bill shows no sign of incorporating the recommendations. It mandates trauma-informed hearings, which instruct adjudicators to favor accusers and were explicitly rejected by the governor’s working group as “incompatible with due process protections.” Garrett said she’s “never before encountered such a corruption of our system of representation” in her time lobbying at both the state and federal level for due process. It’s all the more outrageous because Jackson’s bill reproduces the parts of the criminal justice system that progressives most loathe: targeting “the underserved, minorities, first-generation, and scholarship students” with “experienced campus attorneys and administrators who effectively act as their prosecutor.” Even after submitting our signed opposition “letter” by hand, we were told FACE’s Opposition would never be added as opposition on the eleven-page bill analysis because our submission was previously submitted “incomplete,” presumably meaning it was not signed.
thecollegefix– Greg Piper
