Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., talks a lot about “fairness” in campus sexual assault adjudication, yet her definition of the word appears to be skewed.
Gillibrand on Monday spoke to MSNBC host Chris Matthews about campus sexual assault. And while she mentioned “due process” and “fairness,” the concepts appeared to be only buzz words to her.
For instance, when Matthews asked about confidentiality in these cases and the fact that rape is a felony, Gillibrand explained why colleges, not the legal system, should be handling accusations.
“So the reason why there is a dual system is so that you can have a way to handle this case if the survivor doesn’t feel comfortable going through a criminal trial — that could take a year or two or two or three,” Gillibrand said. “It will obviously change her life and her time at college.”
One of the reasons trials take so long is that both the defense and prosecution need time to prepare their cases. But Gillibrand appears to believe that such due process is a hindrance to justice.
A trial or a hearing will also change the accused student’s life and time at college, which is why campus adjudicators need to be sure they’re not expelling a student for political reasons when there’s no evidence that a crime has been committed.
“So sometimes a survivor just wants a review process to have an opportunity to either have her perpetrator be expelled from school, or if there’s insufficient evidence and he can’t be held responsible, to have some accommodations,” Gillibrand added.
I’ve written before about this concept of Gillibrand’s: She’s basically saying that there’s no such thing as an innocent man who has been accused; he’s either found guilty or he gets away with a crime.
And let’s take a step back to look at what Gillibrand is really saying here. She’s suggesting that the criminal justice system isn’t easy enough for accusers. Police and juries won’t throw someone in jail based on nothing but an accusation. Therefore, a kinder, gentler justice system needs to exist to do just that. It is that kind of thinking that has prompted more than 70 male students to sue their universities after being expelled and treated like criminals without evidence — and sometimes with evidence that points to a false accusation.
Gillibrand also spoke about “accommodations” for accusers – who she always calls “survivors” or “victims” – in case those awful rapists get away with their crime.
“Only a school can change her class schedule so he’s not sitting next to her in science, to make sure she can have a dorm that’s safe – those are accommodations that can happen,” Gillibrand said.
Everything she says is designed to imply guilt on the part of anyone who is accused. That is about as far from “fairness” as one can get. Then she brought the point home.
“But if you professionalize the process then you are going to make sure there’s more due process for both those who are accused and those who are survivors and are accusing a student,” Gillibrand said. “You need to have fairness there and we made sure in our bill that we do that.”
Her bill absolutely does not do that. As I’ve written before, her bill is designed to find more accused students guilty. It puts the weight of an entire administrative office behind anyone who makes an accusation, while providing no such support system for accused students. The bill would teach all those involved in the hearing process to assume guilt. Tellingly, it mentions “due process” only three times. At the same time, the bill calls accusers “victims” throughout, implying that an accusation equals guilt.
Gillibrand insists that her approach is fair — she made that claim last week at a Washington Post event, she made it over the weekend on an episode of “Dateline” and she made it again on Monday. The truth is, there is nothing “fair” about her bill or her stance on campus sexual assault and due process. Gillibrand seems to believe that an accusation equals guilt and that due process just gets in the way.
