Moms band together to protect sons’ due process rights on campus
on August 07, 2014
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We've previously reported on the uneven playing field upon which campus sexual assault cases are tried. In the world of faux-egalitarian bureaucracy that is the university system, there seems to be little concern for the due process rights of the accused; but one new group is aiming to change that.
Families Advocating for Campus Equality, or "FACE," is spearheaded by the mothers of several male students who were falsely accused of sexual assault while at their universities. They're working to change the standards by which students accused of sexual assault are "tried" by universities, and for good reason:
On the basis of a mere accusation, students have been suspended or expelled from school, have been denied their right to attorney representation and have been prohibited from confronting or questioning their accusers. Investigations conducted by college administrators are often faulty, relying on hear-say, rumor, and teenage gossip, while the “burden of proof” -- the amount of evidence necessary to render a finding of guilt -- has been expressly reduced from the more exacting “clear and convincing” to a mere “preponderance” of the evidence. In practice, what this all means is that a student, accused of, say, pilfering another student’s computer in a dormitory, would be entitled to a full and fair hearing with legal representation, a right to confront his accuser, and would be judged by the more exacting “clear and convincing” standard. So, too, for that matter, would someone standing accused of murder in a court of law, where the standard of proof would be “beyond a reasonable doubt.”. But when the accusation is of some variation of sexual misconduct on a college campus -- a charge that itself carries enormous life-altering consequences for the accused -- no such safeguards are afforded.FACE has, of course, been accused of being "anti-woman" for having the audacity to demand equal justice, but the founders of the group vehemently deny this accusation:
Speaking amongst friendly colleagues last Monday at the third roundtable, Mike Jungers, the dean of students at Missouri State University, made the surprising statement that new investigation procedures of campus sexual assault were resulting in the alleged perpetrators agreeing to be interrogated without obtaining an attorney.
He considered this to be a good thing.
