Will Biden Bring Back the Campus Star Chambers?
The new rules on campus sexual-assault charges are working. So why change them?
In April, the University of Arkansas became the first school in the country to admit the obvious: Procedures promulgated in 2020 by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos might have prevented an unjust finding of guilt in a campus sexual-assault case. In a letter to a student identified only as John Doe, the university’s coordinator for Title IX—the 1972 law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any educational institution that receives federal money—acknowledged that, “given the closeness of the evidence in the case, the revised procedures could have led to a different outcome” for Doe. “Different outcome” is a euphemism for exoneration, avoiding a conviction by a star chamber that could have ruined this young person’s life.