SWEEPING Change At The Office for Civil Rights Is Imperative
No matter who Trump nominates, the key task for the next OCR head to do is to reverse its intrusion into campus discipline procedures for students accused of sexual assault. The toxic effects of that intrusion are the subject of a recent book by Johnson and Taylor. In The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities, the authors give a detailed account of the damage wrought by OCR’s “guidance” to colleges. One of the most startling points the authors make is that the use of OCR methods actually undermines an important element of the justice system—Miranda rights. That is because OCR encourages schools to share evidence they’ve obtained without the presence of an attorney with the police, who can then use it if they press charges. “The major effect of this policy,” write the authors, is “an end-run around the accused’s constitutional right not to be subjected to custodial questioning by police without lawyers.”
jamesgmartin.center By George Leef
