Saturday, February 13, 2016

Trashing Our Values And, By Extension, Our History

Ronald Reagan once said:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
That quote came back to me as I read this:
A group of six rape accusers at the University of Tennessee is trying to force the school to ditch the foundations of American justice, suing the school for – gasp – providing basic fairness to accused students...

This is what the group of six rape accusers want to end – a procedure that puts complainant (accuser) and respondent (accused) on the same legal footing. Where accusations don’t equal guilt. Where there’s not a predetermined result to satisfy a federal witch hunt backed by financial threats.

The University of Tennessee has the chance to stand up for the legal rights of all its students, not just those who demand that they be “believed” because they “survived” an ambiguous sexual encounter – and that their alleged attacker be branded a rapist and ruined for life.
This is why courts, not schools, should handle these types of proceedings.

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