Many school disciplinary systems give accused people a firm presumption of innocence, requiring clear-and-convincing evidence of guilt for formal discipline. There is generally no exception for people accused of sexual harassment, who are thus entitled to the same due-process protections as everyone else.
In an April 4 “Dear Colleague” letter reminding schools that sexual violence can constitute sexual harassment in violation of federal law, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) called this well-established presumption of innocence into question. It claimed that schools cannot use a clear-and-convincing standard of proof typical in school disciplinary procedures for sexual harassment cases: “A school’s grievance procedures must use the preponderance of the evidence standard to resolve complaints of sex discrimination.” See Dear Colleague Letter: Sexual Violence Background, Summary and Fast Facts. “Preponderance of the evidence” means that if a school thinks there is as little as a 51 per chance that the accused is guilty, the accused must still be disciplined.
What this means is that a male accused of sexual assault may be expelled from college, and his freedom to go on to graduate school and obtain decent employment may be curtailed and even destroyed, even if there is only a very slight probability that he committed the assault. If the school finds that the complainant’s story of the alleged incident is more credible than the accused's, even by a 50.0001 to 49.9999 percent margin, he packs his bags and is banned from the school forever. Forget law school, forget medical school, forget graduate school of any kind. And good luck explaining that to prospective employers. His life has been effectively destroyed. I bet there will be not consequences for the accuser if the accusation is false. College just got a lot more dangerous for the expendable gender.
You might want to have Jonny take online college courses.
