A victims’ advocate who previously voiced her contempt for due process on college campuses is back again, this time writing in the Washington Post that if colleges are “doing what is right” for accusers, then “due process” is not necessary.
In an article titled “College administrators should help rape survivors, not their school’s public image,” Sarah Merriman, spokeswoman for Students Active for Ending Rape, dismisses the notion that colleges have made strides in addressing campus sexual assault while arguing that due process shouldn’t be part of the equation.
“If we truly have nothing to hide, if universities are always doing what is right for their student survivors, then we would not need to add ‘public image’ and ‘due process for the attacker’ to the list of our battles,” Merriman wrote.
First of all, it is not “due process for the attacker,” because someone is not guilty based solely on an accusation. It is “due process for the accused,” something the Constitution of the U.S. guarantees. Using Merriman’s logic, doing what is right for any victim of a crime should not include due process, since apparently all that is needed now for guilt to be determined is the word of a single person, made while not under oath and without any threat of punishment for lying.
Second, Merriman appears to be still operating under the assumption that schools have an incentive to sweep these incidents under the rug, lest they be viewed as a “rape school.” As I’ve written numerous times before, this is no longer the case. Schools are now incentivized to quickly find an accused student responsible and remove them from the school, no matter how flimsy or nonexistent the evidence is against them.
One can’t always know whether someone is a “victim” or a “survivor” without due process. Just because someone claims to be a victim doesn’t make her one.
To be a victim, one must actually have experienced something criminal, not just regret over a drunken one-night stand months or years ago. To be a survivor, one must actually have survived something, not simply felt bad. Even Brett Sokolow, a leading adviser to colleges on campus sexual assault adjudication (that omits due process), suggests that not everyone who sees himself or herself as a victim truly is one.
“We see complainants who genuinely believe they have been assaulted, despite overwhelming proof that it did not happen,” Sokolow wrote in a letter last year.
Yet these days, an accusation and self-identification of victimhood is all that is needed to upend a potentially innocent student’s life and brand him a rapist for life. Without due process on college campuses, drunken hookups and regretted encounters are elevated to the violent crime of rape, yet treated as no more serious than plagiarism or cheating on a test.
And for activists, the distrust of due process is understandable. Victims’ advocates need to believe the people who come to them for support. It’s not their job to determine the validity of the claim. Someone comes to them in need of something and they offer the support that person needs and wants.
But when dealing with a charge as serious as sexual assault, where a finding of “responsible” leaves a permanent mark on one’s transcript and forever brands him a “rapist” even if what he’s accused of wouldn’t fit the criminal definition, then an accused student needs to be able to refute the charges against him. Title IX and the Department of Education’s “Dear Colleague” letter are woefully inadequate in this regard — by design.
Merriman’s clear bias against the accused is shown when she presents an “example” of an injustice done to an accuser:
“[A] prestigious university president refused to acknowledge the art project of a student who turned her experience of sexual assault, and the university’s mishandling of her case, into a performance art piece,” Merriman wrote.
She may not have mentioned the university or the student, but that’s a clear allusion to Emma Sulkowicz and Columbia University. What Merriman ignores is the fact that there are very real concerns about the validity of that student’s accusation. Facebook messages between her and the student she accused show friendly, even loving, messages between the two immediately after the alleged attack and during the months that followed. No witnesses ever verified her story of being punched and choked, which probably would have left noticeable bruises.
Merriman also ignores that the accused student was interviewed by police who found no evidence to file charges. Columbia also found the accused student “not responsible” in three additional accusations by Sulkowicz’s friends.
Most importantly, Merriman ignores all the support given to Sulkowicz by her university until the accused student filed a lawsuit. It was only then — at graduation — that Columbia’s president appeared to disapprove of her art project.
But who needs facts when you have an accusation and a mattress (which is what Sulkowicz carried around for months as protest art)?
I’m sure Merriman’s organization does exceptional work with those who say they’ve been the victim of a crime. But biased organizations cannot be responsible for writing laws and policies.
Sexual assault is a serious crime and should be treated as such. Before we, as a society, begin branding people as rapists, we should be absolutely sure — by way of evidence and due process —that they deserve the label.
