Susan Collins just saved the women’s movement and its progress on rape prosecutions

The fight over Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation exposed fatal flaws in the “Believe the Victim” approach to sexual assault.

That approach is spreading rapidly through the country and is being actively promoted as the basis for deciding campus misconduct complaints as well as criminal cases. As interpreted by too many political advocates, the command to “Believe the Victim” tramples the principles of fairness, justice, and due process which have long inspired the feminist effort to reform rape law and have carried that effort to important victories over more than half a century.