Colleges making war on young men

Carol Markowicz:

The largely hallucinatory “war on women” has nothing on the very real war on college boys.

A few recent stories highlight just how unfair and unjust an environment US campuses have become for young men — and the necessity of federal intervention to fix the damage previous federal intervention has done.

Take Thomas Klocke, a University of Texas at Arlington student accused of making anti-gay comments to a classmate. Klocke vehemently denied the charges and said his classmate had hit on him and Klocke angered him by rebuffing his advances.

According to Reason magazine, “Klocke received no hearing, even though the university’s Title IX policy explicitly mandates hearings for students in danger of being expelled. He was simply charged with making physical threats against a student and engaging in harassment, in violation of Title IX.”

A school “academic integrity” official “conceded that there wasn’t enough evidence against Klocke.” No problem: “Administrators found him responsible for harassment anyway and placed him on disciplinary probation.”

Klocke killed himself a few days later.

This month, the case of John Doe and Jane Roe, both University of California, San Diego, students, wound its way up to the California Court of Appeal, three years after Jane first accused John of sexual misconduct. The disciplinary proceedings at their campus weighed heavily in Jane’s favor. John wasn’t allowed to ask questions of his accuser or read statements other people had made in support of her accusations.

According to Politico’s Laura Bazelon, “Many campuses do not allow lawyers to advocate or even to be present in sexual assault proceedings. Nearly all prohibit the accused from directly questioning their accusers.” But the UCSD disciplinary-panel chairwoman refused to even pose many of John’s questions he was permitted to ask indirectly.
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There is more.

All of these actions are a clear violation of the due process clause of the constitution.  The Obama administration is largely responsible for these travesties with its requirement that colleges become police, judge, and jury when there is an allegation of a sexual assault.

The Trump administration should revoke these requirements immediately and if they are not revoked the courts should declare them unconstitutional.  All allegations of sexual assault should be referred to the local district attorney who can investigate and bring charges if there is evidence of guilt.  At that point, both the accused and the alleged victim would be entitled to due process.