Accused will be presumed innocent until proven guilty, reversing Biden policy.
By Donald Jeffries
New guidelines recently established by the Department of Education struck a rare blow for fairness on college campuses. The update released by Education Secretary Betsy De-Vos promises to restore full constitutional rights to those accused of sexual harassment and other offenses, under college Title IX proceedings.
In 2011, the administration of Barack Obama loosened the preponderance of evidence standard considerably, such that an accusation could be judged truthful by a “50% plus a feather” ratio. More significantly, cross examination of accusers, an essential legal safeguard for any defendant, was discouraged. Obama basically codified political correctness during that era, and a “believe all women” credo reigned supreme on every campus. Schools didn’t want the negative publicity from being accused of being insensitive or even sexist. In one notable example, Emma Sulkowicz charged fellow Columbia University student Paul Nungesser with rape, on what can kindly be referred to as questionable evidence. Columbia, as much a bastion of identity politics as any other institution of higher learning, found Nungesser “not responsible” for any wrongdoing. Social media records revealed that Sulkowicz remained on friendly terms with Nungesser more than a month after the alleged incident. Sulkowicz has converted all this into an “art project,” carrying a mattress around campus in an effort to get Nungesser to leave Columbia.
Despite Columbia University’s decision, virtue-signaling Sen. Kristin Gillibrand dubbed Nungesser a “rapist” without a speck of real evidence. Gillibrand is one of many hypocritical “leftists” who have endorsed Joe Biden for president, despite a very credible allegation of sexual violation leveled by former Biden staffer Tara Reade, as discussed in AFP issue 19&20. “So, when we say believe women, it’s for this explicit intention of making sure there’s space for all women to come forward to speak their truth, to be heard. And in this allegation, that is what Tara Reade has done,” Gillibrand attempted to rationalize. “She has come forward, she has spoken, and they have done an investigation in several outlets. Those investigations, Vice President Biden has called for himself. Vice President Biden has vehemently denied these allegations and I support Vice President Biden.”
Even the likes of USA Today have concluded that “college has become an anti-male space.” As a Feb. 12, 2019 article in that national newspaper noted, “At today’s universities, masculinity is almost never discussed except in negative terms, usually with the word ‘toxic’ attached. When girls and women are discussed, the question is always about how to help them do better. When boys and men are mentioned, it’s almost always as some sort of a problem.” Title IX was theoretically implemented to promote sexual equality on campuses, but it has had the opposite effect. To quote further from that article, Title IX “has been turned into a club with which to beat male students. Universities treat accusations of sexual misconduct against male students . . . as presumptively true. The accuser is given all sorts of help and deference, the accused is treated as a criminal from day one, and often not allowed to call witnesses, cross-examine his accuser, or otherwise enjoy the sort of due process that, say, a university administrator would demand if accused of a crime.” Even when males are exonerated of such allegations, they are sometimes still expelled by the school, as happened with Saifullah Khan at Yale.
A Title IX complaint was filed with the Department of Education in 2019 by a group of male Cornell University students. The complaint compared the multitude of resources reserved for female students, such as the Women’s Health Center and the Women’s Research Center, as well as the 390 scholarships available only to women, with the absolute lack of comparable resources for men, including scholarships. A complaint filed against Harvard University called out its partnership with the American Psychological Association, which recently proclaimed “traditional masculinity” to be harmful. A mother and attorney filed a complaint against Tulane University, alleging that “Tulane’s implementation of Title IX provides greater educational opportunities for female students than for male students. When opportunities and benefits are offered to one group because of their sex . . . it is patently unfair.”
Joe Biden publicly blasted the new guidelines by the Department of Education. The former Obama vice president oversaw that administration’s initiative on this issue. Biden then proclaimed it was time to “change the culture” on campus. Although Biden never mentioned due process, the presumption of innocence, or the rights of the accused in any speech on the subject at that time, he is singing a different tune in the wake of Reade’s credible sexual-assault allegations against him. Reade’s allegations would certainly have been upheld by any Title IX tribunal, under the standards set by the Obama administration, which he himself directly championed.
Many defenders of Biden have attacked Reade’s delay in going public, and even her present looks, something they’d be apoplectic over if the accused was an unknown male college student.
In short, Biden should be ecstatic that he is not being judged under the strictures of the very Title IX rules that he himself helped implement. If he were, he would be asked to drop out of the presidential race immediately. Luckily for Biden, he and his ultra-hypocritical female supporters are political partisans and thus easily able to pivot on the issue of women’s rights. This is quite a bit different from the hysterical screeching we heard from the same cast of characters when they called for the head of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on a platter when he was accused of pushing Christine Blasey Ford down on a bed and merely scaring her when Kavanaugh was but a teenager.
Donald Jeffries is a highly respected author and researcher whose work on the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations and other high crimes of the Deep State has been read by millions of people across the world. Jeffries is also the author of three books currently being sold by the AFP Online Store.
