An accused’s rights to confront his or her accuser through cross examination and to have a neutral adjudicator have long been considered the very basics of due process. In the name of protecting women, the 2011 guidance encouraged universities to abandon these well-tested pillars in favor of a single-investigator model, in which a Title IX administrator both elicits the stories from the involved parties and rules on the outcome. The Dear Colleague letter also pushed universities into lowering the standard of proof and discouraged any kind of cross examination that might probe discrepancies in an alleged victim’s story.

“It’s particularly concerning that a presidential candidate seems oblivious to the unintended repercussions of a policy he championed. Over 500 lawsuits have been filed by accused students since the 2011 Dear Colleague letter, resulting in at least 161 court decisions in these students’ favor and over 100 pre-decision settlements,” Garrett said.

She also added that to her knowledge, Biden did not even reach out to organizations concerned about due process or any of the families of those suing their universities before pronouncing the Obama administration action an unalloyed good that should be restored.

Under Secretary Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s Department of Education withdrew the Obama-era guidance and proposed a new, fairer rule, which among other changes ensures that those accused of Title IX misconduct on campus have access to a fair adjudicator, the advice of counsel, and the ability to question (through third parties) their accusers. Now, leading Democratic candidate Biden says he will restore the madhouse that federal judges have excoriated as “enough to shock the Court’s conscience.”

Is it any wonder that in the wake of watching the Kavanaugh hearings, in which a man with an impeccable record had his reputation nationally and permanently trashed by allegations countered by all the available evidence, more American men reported they’d rather be falsely accused of murder than sexual misconduct? In that same poll, almost 60 percent of both the men and women surveyed said society presumes a man accused of sexual assault to be guilty.

While we should of course have sympathy for victims of sexual assault, the unfair process Biden blithely promises to restore has victims as well. FACE collects some of their stories, mostly anonymized to protect the young men and their families still traumatized and ashamed by their experiences with unfair campus adjudication.

It’s doubtless true that many women have negative experiences in the alcohol-fueled hookup culture prevalent on most American universities, but attempting to cram the genie back in the bottle with over-broad definitions of consent and unfair processes just creates more victims. And the kangaroo processes necessary to punish men for failing to read women’s minds in ambiguous situations infantilize women, as well as cheapen the experiences of real rape victims.