Washington Post columnist George Will has been one of the most high-profile voices speaking out against the lack of due process for college students accused of sex crimes on campus.
In a new column well worth the read, Will discusses the case of Grant Neal (which I have written about previously), a Colorado State University-Pueblo student who was effectively expelled for sex that even the alleged victim says was consensual. Neal and an athletic trainer engaged in consensual sexual activity, but when she went to work with a hickey, her peer — who had not been present during the activity and had not been told there was a sexual assault — reported the trainer as a victim.
The school rushed to kick Neal out, even after he presented an audio recording of the alleged victim telling him, her mother and a school administrator that there was no assault. When this was brought up, Neal alleges in his lawsuit against the school, he was told the woman probably only said these things because she was “scared” of him.
The Chronicle of Higher Education said this case raises the question of what schools should do about a third-party complaint when the alleged victim herself says there was no assault. Will suggests that “in a calmer time” this question “would have a self-evident answer.
But these are not calmer times. Despite documented evidence there was no sexual assault, colleges and universities like CSU-Pueblo are so desperate to show the Education Department — which has dropped the hammer on colleges as far as this issue goes — that they take sexual assault seriously they are willing to expel innocent students. Because on colleges these days, an innocent man is less of a liability than the uproar that an accusing woman — even a woman who is not an actual victim — can cause against the school.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
