SPOTLIGHT On Due Process. 73% of Top 53 Schools DO NOT Guarantee Presumption of Innocence. MIT, Brown, Columbia, Harvard, Penn, Pepperdine, Rice, RPI, Vanderbilt = F

December 27, 2018

Colleges and universities across the country are failing to afford their students due process and fundamental fairness in their disciplinary proceedings. In 2017, for the first time, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) rated the top 53 universities in the country based on 10 fundamental elements of due process. Our findings were troubling. This year, 2018, we assessed the same institutions. Like last year, the findings are dire:

Nearly three quarters (73.6%) of America’s top 53 universities do not guarantee students that they will be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Only slightly more than half of schools (52.8%) require that fact-finders—the institution’s version of judge and/or jury—be impartial.
Fewer than one third of institutions (30.2%) guarantee a meaningful hearing, where each party may see and hear the evidence being presented to fact-finders by the opposing party.
47 out of the 53 universities studied receive a D or F grade from FIRE for at least one disciplinary policy, meaning that they fully provide no more than 4 of the 10 elements of a fair procedure that FIRE rated.
Most institutions have one set of standards for adjudicating charges of sexual misconduct and another for all other non-academic charges. 86.8% of rated universities receive a D or F for protecting the due process rights of students accused of sexual misconduct.
Of the 104 policies rated at the 53 schools in the report, not a single policy receives an A grade.

thefire.org Executive Summary