By Scott Tibbs, May 16, 2014
All of the talk about protecting women on college campuses raises some very disturbing and frightening questions and presents a clear and present danger to our Constitution. Obviously, rapists need to be harshly punished and the innocent need to be protected, but why are college campuses dealing with this at all?
See articles on this issue here and here and here and here and here.
The idea that university administrators should be the ones dealing with rape on campus is absolutely absurd. Rape is a violent crime, and the place for violent crime to be prosecuted is in the criminal justice system - not a university judicial system. The worst thing a university can do to a rapist (even after shockingly violent rapes) is to expel someone from campus. Well, whoop de diddly do. We often hear about criminals getting a slap on the wrist, but a slap on the wrist would be more serious than expulsion. Criminals need jail time, not academic discipline.
It may be true that if all of the rape cases that happen on campus were prosecuted in the criminal justice system, it would place a strain on the system. The solution to that is easy. Simply take all of the money spent on prosecuting nonviolent crimes via the War on Drugs and move that money into prosecuting violent crime instead. Someone smoking dope in his home might be a fool, but he is not a threat to anyone else. Rapists are a real threat.
The clear and present danger to our Constitution comes from the Obama regime's determination that universities establish a clearly illegal "preponderance of the evidence" standard in prosecuting students accused of sexual assault. In some cases, the accused is not allowed to even confront his accuser in the campus "judicial" proceeding, much less have access to an attorney as demanded by the Constitution.
That is such a shocking violation of due process rights that I am stunned that there is not more public outrage about the Obama regime's betrayal of our constitutional protections. This alone is grounds for impeachment. One need only look at how the faculty and administration at Duke so-called "University" rushed to form a lynch mob when the lacrosse team was falsely accused of "rape" to see how dangerous this is.
We need to take rape seriously, and many universities sadly do not. This leaves victims hanging and creates an opportunity for rapists to attack more women. The solution is certainly not to throw the Constitution and due process rights into the garbage can as the Obama regime proposes.
The solution is to place prosecution of rape back where it belongs - in the criminal justice system. The role of universities should be only to provide support for victims, and keep the alleged victim and accused separated, if need be. Let police and prosecutors handle crime. University discipline should be reserved for things like plagiarism.
