25 June—One of the good things to come out of the Trump administration is the change in Title IX that gave a college student accused of sexual assault—commonly and conveniently referred to as rape—on a campus the right to a hearing, including the right to have the accuser cross-examined (although not directly by the accused student).

It was about time to trash the unfair, shamefully draconian inquisitional system common to most college campuses that deprived the accused student (almost always a male) of virtually all rights. Without getting into details, accused students had previously been allowed only minimal access to evidence and witnesses against them while the accuser (almost always a female) and college were subject to very little—if any—accountability.

In other words, no due process. A guy accused of rape on a college campus was subjected to a non-judicial grand jury that was predisposed to indict him on the word—neither sworn nor subject to perjury—of a girl or another guy (or whatever) who may have had morning-after remorse or malicious intent. That’s not the way justice should work. But college campuses aren’t the real world. And, when you think about it, what have real-world justice and due process got to do with education?

We can fairly criticize Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education, for all sorts of things. But it’s she who ramrodded the needed amendment to Title IX in the name of fairness. Some—many, in fact—would argue that it’s not fair to make a victim of rape go through more trauma (assuming the alleged rape actually occurred) in the interest of fairness and justice. So what’s fair? Justice or injustice?

As Sir William Blackstone, the great eighteenth-century English legal authority, opined, “It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer.”

Anyway, the Biden administration, thanks in large part to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, whom Connecticut is lucky to be rid of (at least we can thank Biden for something), is going to revert to most of the old unfair inquisitional ways colleges investigate and otherwise handle sexual assault. The Cardona crowd insists that the Trump administration rules have made real victims less likely to accuse real rapists. So due process and the presumption of innocence will be thrown under the bus while favoring the rights—make that the convenience—of the accusers.

Colleges will thus be able to launch investigations without formal complaints of sexual misconduct, for starters. Evidence won’t have to be shared with defendants—although they’re not supposed to be called defendants. Live hearings won’t be required. And forget about cross-examining accusers unless it’s required by state law.

Liberal as well as conservative observers of higher education have warned that the Title IX Biden backsliding scheduled to take effect in October will revert to a system lacking checks and balances, limiting due process, and thus trampling procedural fairness.

Colleges will still be permitted, but not required, to be fair to accused students by following the DeVos rules. But don’t expect too much in the way of fairness or anything else that’s positive from college administrators.

It’s refreshing to report that the Connecticut Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, has given Yale University and an unsuccessful albeit still anonymous accuser their well-deserved comeuppance in a civil suit brought by a student who had been falsely accused of sexual assault but ultimately exonerated by a real court. Can’t wait to see how much Jane Doe and Yale have to pay the real victim . . .