Where Does This Antipathy Towards Men Come From?

How is it that too many of our schools have lost any sense of fairness, decency, and justice?

Mr. Strange was cleared on both counts. On Feb. 3, 2012, a grand jury handed up a "no bill" indictment on the sodomy charge, meaning the evidence was insufficient to establish probable cause for prosecution. On May 24, when the simple-assault case went to trial, the accuser didn't show up. "I don't have a witness to go forward with, your honor," said city attorney Michael Short. Case dismissed.

So Mr. Strange got his day in court and was treated fairly. But he had already been punished for the unproven crimes. Auburn expelled him after a campus tribunal found him "responsible" for committing the catchall offense of "sexual assault and/or sexual harassment." A letter from Melvin Owens, head of the campus police, explained that expulsion is a life sentence. If Mr. Strange ever sets foot on Auburn property, he will be "arrested for Criminal Trespass Third," Mr. Owens warned.

Joshua Strange, now 23, is a civilian casualty in the Obama administration's war on men. In an April 2011 directive, Russlyn Ali, then assistant education secretary for civil rights, threatened to withhold federal money from any educational institution that failed to take a hard enough line against sexual misconduct to ensure "that all students feel safe in their school." The result was to leave accused students more vulnerable to false charges and unfair procedures. The prospect of losing federal funds has left university administrators "crippled by panic," Robert Shibley of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education told me. "The incentives are pointing toward findings of guilt, not accurate findings"...

Mr. Strange still should not have been convicted. The grand jury found there wasn't even probable cause, a looser standard than preponderance of the evidence. But the university hearing that yielded his expulsion was a travesty of a legal process.

The most striking quality of the 99-minute proceeding is its abject lack of professionalism. Imagine a courtroom with a jury and witnesses, but no judge or lawyers. Mr. Strange and his accuser had lawyers present—the only people in the room with legal training—but they were forbidden to speak except to identify themselves at the outset.

Presiding was an Auburn librarian, Tim Dodge, the committee's chairman. The other members were two students, a staffer from the College of Liberal Arts and a fisheries professor from the Agriculture College. Mr. Dodge was confused and hesitant throughout. At one point he got lost and admitted: "I can't find the script here." On multiple occasions an unidentified voice—Mr. Strange believes it is Mr. Frye—can be heard on the recording whispering stage directions to Mr. Dodge.

Kangaroo courts and drumheads are supposed to be relegated to the darker corners of history.

One of the worst parts, though, is the insidious nature of such proceedings, with impacts not unlike those of affirmative action:

Thus Ms. Taylor's testimony amounted to a claim that in principle a woman's tears are sufficient to establish a man's guilt—an inane stereotype that infantilizes women in the interest of vilifying men.

How did we get to this stage?