by Ashe Schow
The new California policies all but guarantee accused students will be found responsible without a fair or impartial investigation. Think about this – do you have any idea what this means in terms of law, courts, and criminal justice?
Advocates for due process knew this day was coming. We knew that one day colleges would notice that there was only one way for students accused of sexual assault would be able to defend themselves and that the colleges would make that defense itself a violation of policy.
Of course the new policy is coming out of California, which led the way in inserting campus bureaucrats into the bedroom with its “affirmative consent” policies. These policies mandate how students must engage in sexual activity – not as a passionate act but as a contractual question-and-answer session. The only way to prove one followed such a policy is to videotape the encounter, but now, California colleges are making such recordings a violation of school policy.
Due process advocates knew that one day a student would try to record an encounter to retain evidence that he obtained sober consent. We also knew that if an accuser claimed she was too drunk to consent to sex, someone would make the argument that she must have also been too drunk to consent to a recording. And that’s where the new policy comes in.
