May 11, 2021
As Executive Director and representative of the Eugene/Springfield, Oregon office of the NAACP, I’d like to state our full support for the change in regulations to allow for substantive due process for all students accused of misconduct in our universities and college campuses.
After consideration by our legal redress committee and our committee chair, attorney Brian Michaels, as well as the review of articles on the topic, including a statement by SAVE, we have decided that this effort deserves our support. The SAVE release explains:
“Analyses show although black male students are far outnumbered on college campuses, they are four times more likely than white students to file lawsuits alleging their rights were violated in Title IX proceedings, and at one university OCR investigated for racial discrimination, black male students were accused of 50% of the sexual violence reported to the university yet they comprised only 4.2% of the student population.“
And for added weight, this from former Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg:
“There’s been criticism of some college codes of conduct for not giving the accused person a fair opportunity to be heard, and that’s one of the basic tenets of our system, as you know, everyone deserves a fair hearing.”
Eric Richardson
Executive Director
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon NAACP