Last November, federal prosecutors invited Ilene Wahpeta, an incarcerated woman, to give a victim impact statement at the sentencing of Andrew Jones, a Bureau of Prisons (BOP) employee who was convicted of sexually assaulting three other inmates.

Less than a year later, the U.S. government is fighting a petition Wahpeta filed for early release based on the same allegations that prosecutors previously invited her to speak about, arguing she wasn't a named victim in the criminal case against Jones and that her claims aren't credible.

The Justice Department announced in 2022, amid several damning investigations into sexual assault by staff in federal prisons, that it was working to expand a program for early release to include women who'd been abused behind bars, but Wahpeta's case is one example of what criminal justice advocates say is the Justice Department undercutting that policy. Lawyers representing incarcerated women filing for early release based on their status as sexual assault survivors say federal prosecutors are now routinely fighting to disqualify their clients because of an unreasonably narrow definition.

At the heart of the issue is a new policy passed in April 2023 by the U.S. Sentencing Commission that makes federal inmates who were sexually abused by staff eligible for compassionate release. Compassionate release is a policy that allows federal inmates to petition for early release for "extraordinary and compelling" reasons, such as terminal illness or family emergencies. However, the expansion included a major caveat that was added at the recommendation of the Justice Department. To be eligible, a prisoner's claim of sexual abuse "must be established by a conviction in a criminal case, a finding or admission of liability in a civil case, or a finding in an administrative proceeding."

Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), a criminal justice advocacy group, has been coordinating legal representation for women who were formerly incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin, a federal women's prison in California that was infested with so much corruption, sexual abuse, and whistleblower retaliation that the BOP shut it down earlier this year. 

Shanna Rifkin, the deputy general counsel at FAMM, says they have secured releases for 17 women out of the 25 cases they've taken on. But Rifkin says government opposition has increased significantly since the new policy statement took effect.

"Before November 1, 2023, when this policy statement went into effect, in almost every single case the government was agreeing or not opposing the compassionate release motion," Rifkin says. "Since then, there has been a lot more resistance to compassionate release motions based on sexual abuse."

The Justice Department argued that requiring a finding of guilt would set a clear standard for judges. It wrote in a public comment on the Sentencing Commission's proposed changes that "permitting compassionate release hearings only after the completion of other administrative or legal proceedings will help ensure that allegations are more fairly adjudicated, prevent mini-trials on allegations, and reduce interference with pending investigations and prosecutions."

However, Rifkin says this undercuts one of the major reforms in the FIRST STEP Act of 2018. That act changed compassionate release to allow inmates to directly petition federal judges, significantly reducing the BOP's power to stonewall and delay petitions.

"It effectively puts the Department of Justice back in the driver's seat," Rifkin says of the new policy statement, "because who drives a criminal case? The Department of Justice. Victims of abuse have no say over when a case against their abuser will be brought, if it will be brought, and who will be charged as the victims in the case."

And while a finding of guilt may sound like a reasonable standard, it is a surprisingly difficult one to meet in cases of sexual assault perpetrated by government employees.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 2016 to 2018, perpetrators of staff sexual misconduct were only convicted, sentenced, fined, or pleaded guilty in 6 percent of substantiated incidents in federal and state prisons.

Reason detailed last year how a cadre of corrupt guards at a federal minimum security camp in Florida was allowed to prey on women for years without oversight. Those guards eventually admitted under oath to internal affairs investigators that they had assaulted incarcerated women, yet most were allowed to retire and none was ever prosecuted.

Over the past year, the Justice Department has ramped up scrutiny of prisons and prosecutions of corrupt BOP employees, but even with more vigilant oversight, criminal cases do not move quickly through the court system, especially if the defendant goes to trial. Rifkin cited one pending case against a former FCI Dublin correctional officer who has been charged with assaulting three women. He was indicted in May 2023, but his trial isn't scheduled until 2025.

"So women who are survivors of his abuse ostensibly have to wait until the government has concluded their case in order to have a cognizable claim under this policy statement," Rifkin explains.

As for civil suits against government employees, they routinely take years to resolve, and settlements often stipulate that they do not constitute admissions of guilt by the defendants.

The difference between how petitions have been handled before and after the new standard was enacted is stark. Take the case of Aimee Chavira, a former inmate at FCI Dublin who says she was abused by five correctional officers and continued to suffer retaliation after she was transferred out of the prison.

When Chavira filed her compassionate release petition, only one of those officers had been indicted, and another committed suicide while under investigation. Nevertheless, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California filed a motion of nonopposition in response to her petition. Chavira was released in May of last year.

Contrast that with Wahpeta's case, where prosecutors have not only tried to apply the adjudication requirement but also attacked her credibility.

In a court filing opposing Wahpeta's petition, prosecutors note that Wahpeta never gave her victim impact statement because of objections from Jones' attorney and concerns that her story was insufficiently corroborated. The government also puts significance on the facts that she initially refused to cooperate with FBI investigators and denied being abused; that she didn't mention being abused in letters to her family she wrote while in solitary confinement; that she contemplated getting a lawyer; and that her descriptions of abuse were remarkably similar to the narratives of the named victims in the criminal case against Jones.

"Even when writing to her parents, her main concern was getting out of confinement early, not reporting what she had seen," federal prosecutors argue. "Also, defendant never mentions being a victim of abuse, but rather that she witnessed the abuse."

But this behavior is all too common in cases of sexual abuse in prison. Incarcerated victims of sexual assault often initially refuse to cooperate with investigators out of fear of retaliation from correctional officers, who remain in total control of their lives. Indeed, Wahpeta was put in solitary confinement while Jones was under investigation, and she remained there for more than two months before Jones was removed from the prison. Besides embarrassment or any other number of personal reasons, survivors are also often vague in communications with family because correctional officers can read their letters and emails.

Bay Area news outlet KTVU has interviewed dozens of women over the past two years about sexual abuse and retaliation inside FCI Dublin, and a lawsuit on behalf of multiple incarcerated FCI Dublin women described the repression inside the prison in detail: "Survivors who report sexual abuse are verbally threatened, physically assaulted, sent to solitary confinement, given false disciplinary tickets, have their cells tossed and property destroyed, have their mail (including legal mail) interfered with, strip searched, and transferred to other BOP institutions away from their families—and are even targeted for further sexual abuse."

In a sentencing memorandum filed in Jones' case, prosecutors were keenly aware of how retaliation works inside federal prisons. "To enforce the silence that was so critical to the perpetuation of his predation, Jones created an environment of intimidation, fear, and reprisal," prosecutors wrote. "It wasn't just words. Jones also enforced silence and obedience through violence and threats of violence."

Yet, now federal prosecutors take Wahpeta's silence as a mark against her.

"DOJ has already decided whether Ms. Wahpeta is lying. And it decided she isn't," Wahpeta's attorney wrote in a response. "It decided she isn't when the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California invited her to read a victim impact statement at Officer Andrew Jones's sentencing hearing. If the government believed that Ms. Wahpeta was lying, it would have had a duty to tell the Court. It did not do so. In fact, until its response here, at no point during the duration of Ms. Wahpeta's cooperation with the government has the government questioned what happened to Ms. Wahpeta to either her or her counsel. Nor could it. Because it's true."

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The post Advocates Say the Justice Department Is Failing To Provide Relief to Women Who Were Abused in Prison appeared first on Reason.com.

Former vice cop Andrew Mitchell has been sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty late last year to two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and one count of tampering. Mitchell, who was employed for many years as a police officer in Columbus, Ohio, is accused of picking up sex workers and sexually assaulting them.

This week, a federal judge sentenced him to the maximum prison sentence recommended by prosecutors, plus a fine of $300 and five years of supervised release.

It's something, at least.

But his victims will receive no restitution payment. And last year, Mitchell walked on much more serious charges involving the killing of Donna Castleberry.

 

Castleberry's Death

Mitchell fatally shot the 23-year-old while she was trapped in his unmarked police car. He later claimed he killed Castleberry in self-defense after she stabbed him in the hand.

"Donna entered the front passenger door of Mitchell's vehicle and sat in the passenger seat next to Mitchell," according to a civil complaint against Mitchell filed by Castleberry's sister. "Mitchell than [sic] drove her to secluded location at or near South Yale Avenue, Columbus, Ohio in an alley and parked his vehicle in a manner which would prevent Donna from exiting the vehicle."

The Franklin County Coroner's Office called the death a homicide, and a grand jury indicted Mitchell on homicide and involuntary manslaughter charges. But a jury couldn't reach a verdict in the first trial, leading a Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge to declare a mistrial. And a jury returned a verdict of not guilty in the second trial, despite the multiple holes in Mitchell's story.

Mitchell also faced a civil lawsuit from a Jane Doe who alleged that in 2017, Mitchell told her he would arrest her for outstanding warrants but also said "give that pretty ass up and you won't go to jail." According to Doe's complaint, Mitchell handcuffed her to the backseat of the car and then raped her, then picked her up and did it again the following year. In 2022, the plaintiff in the Jane Doe case dismissed the case and it's not clear why. It's also unclear whether this Jane Doe is one of the women Mitchell is accused of detaining in the federal case.

 

The Federal Case

In 2019, federal prosecutors accused Mitchell of picking up sex workers on false pretenses and then trapping them in his car and sexually assaulting them. He was charged with nine criminal counts, including multiple counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and multiple counts of tampering with a witness, victim, or informant.

Mitchell told one victim "he was a police officer and acted as if he were doing a check for any outstanding warrants on the victim," then "used this ruse to handcuff the victim to the doorknob of his vehicle," according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office last December. "He drove the victim to a nearby parking lot with multiple dumpsters and forcible [sic] held and detained the victim against her will before dropping her off at her boyfriend's residence." Mitchell picked up another victim and "began discussing the victim's rates for sexual activity before announcing that he was an officer with the vice unit and said she was going to jail," according to prosecutors. "Mitchell kidnapped the victim and drove her to Lindbergh Park, holding her against her will."

That's the activity to which Mitchell pleaded guilty, along with removing and destroying potential evidence from a rental apartment he owned. (Specifically, he disposed of and bleached potential evidence "so the FBI could not gather evidence if they came to search it," per his pleas.)

But this isn't the whole story.

Prosecutors initially accused him of sexually assaulting the two women he picked up, and though this was not mentioned as part of the announcement of Mitchell's plea, prosecutors explain why in a sentencing report.

Mitchell's lawyers "objected to all references to sexual assault…within the presentence report as the negotiated plea agreement and accompanying Statement of Facts did not stipulate to the occurrence of any sexual activity," notes the government's sentencing memorandum. "The plea agreement was the result of significant negotiation in the face of a potentially very difficult trial for both sides. While both victims have been cooperative with law enforcement and indicated a willingness to testify, they both also indicated a strong preference for this case to be resolved short of trial. This dilemma led to this resolution and the need for a factual determination of this issue to be done at sentencing."

Nonetheless, "the evidence supports a finding that sexual assaults occurred," the government stated. "While Mitchell continues to deny any sexual involvement with these women, there is no explanation for [his] admitted behavior" of handcuffing one victim to a doorknob or taking one victim to a secluded park and detaining her there unless "more was going on than just Mitchell abusing the powers of his badge to only detain someone. "Further, significant evidence corroborated the testimony of the victims that Mitchell took advantage of the depravation of their liberty to further assault and sexually victimize them."

 

More Victims? 

Castleberry and the two victims in the federal case are almost certainly not the only women that Mitchell preyed on.  "Mitchell intimidated and hindered at least three other additional victims from communicating with law enforcement and the ongoing grand jury looking into his illegal conduct," the government alleges in its sentencing report.

Prosecutors also note the vulnerability sex workers face when a cop is their assailant.

"Mitchell purposely targeted [sex workers] in the belief that their complaints of assault and sexual compromise would not be believed by law enforcement suspected of being too aligned with one of their own," the government claims.

"Throughout the FBI investigation, female interviewees explained their doubts and hesitation in reporting Mitchell due to fears of retaliation and being disbelieved. Mitchell routinely used this dynamic to his advantage as both a police officer (and a landlord) in seeking sexual conquest and control while ignoring the law he was sworn to uphold."

 

Columbus Vice

"Andrew Mitchell betrayed his oath, the values of the Columbus Division of Police and the trust of our community. He used his position to target and exploit some of the most vulnerable in our community. We hope the close of this dark, painful chapter brings some measure of peace to everyone he wronged," the Columbus Division of Police said in a statement last December.

Mitchell isn't the only member of the Columbus Division of Police to have faced misconduct allegations in recent years, though the accusations against him were by far the most serious.

Members of the vice unit improperly arrested Stormy Daniels in 2018.

Two of the cops involved in Daniels' arrest—Steven G. Rosser and Whitney R. Lancaster—were arrested on federal criminal charges unrelated to the Daniels case but also involving strip clubs. Lancaster was acquitted at trial but Rosser was found guilty of conspiracy against rights. Rosser was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.

Columbus police temporarily disbanded the vice squad in 2019 and had the FBI's public corruption task force look into it.

Police replaced the vice squad with something called the Police and Community Together (PACT) Unit, which was meant to be more transparent and accountable. The PACT page on the city of Columbus website now says "page not found."

These days, "prostitution arrests are made by uniformed PACT officers in marked cruisers," reported Columbus Monthly. "'PACT also has a policy to not trap or block women in their vehicles. If an individual wants out of the vehicle, they let them out,'" former Deputy Police Chief Jennifer Knight told the publication.

The post Cop Who Dodged Sentence for Killing Sex Worker Gets 11 Years for Abducting More Sex Workers appeared first on Reason.com.

The Los Angeles Press Club on Thursday announced the finalists for the 66th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards, recognizing the best work in print, online, and broadcast media published in 2023.

Reason, which is headquartered in L.A., is a finalist for 14 awards.

A sincere thanks to the judges who read and watched our submissions, as well as to the Reason readers, subscribers, and supporters, without whom we would not be able to produce impactful journalism.

Senior Editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown is a finalist for best technology reporting across all media platforms—print, radio, podcast, TV, and online—for her November 2023 print piece, "Do Social Media Algorithms Polarize Us? Maybe Not," in which she challenged what has become the traditional wisdom around the root of online toxicity:

For years, politicians have been proposing new regulations based on simple technological "solutions" to issues that stem from much more complex phenomena. But making Meta change its algorithms or shifting what people see in their Twitter feeds can't overcome deeper issues in American politics—including parties animated more by hate and fear of the other side than ideas of their own. This new set of studies should serve as a reminder that expecting tech companies to somehow fix our dysfunctional political culture won't work.

Science Reporter Ronald Bailey is a finalist for best medical/health reporting in print or online for "Take Nutrition Studies With a Grain of Salt," also from the November 2023 issue, where he meticulously dissected why the epidemiology of food and drink is, well, "a mess":

This doesn't mean you can eat an entire pizza, a quart of ice cream, and six beers tonight without some negative health effects. (Sorry.) It means nutritional epidemiology is a very uncertain guide for how to live your life and it certainly isn't fit for setting public policy.

In short, take nutrition research with a grain of salt. And don't worry: Even though the World Health Organization (WHO) says "too much salt can kill you," the Daily Mail noted in 2021 that "it's not as bad for health as you think."

Managing Editor Jason Russell is a finalist in print/online sports commentary for his August/September 2023 cover story, "Get Your Politics Out of My Pickleball," which explored the emerging fault lines as the government gets involved in America's weirdest, fastest-growing sport:

Pickleball will always have haters—and if its growth continues, local governments will still face public pressure to build more courts. Some critics think the sport is a fad, but strong growth continues for the time being, even as the COVID-19 pandemic ends and other activities compete for time and attention. There's no need to force nonplayers to support it with their tax dollars, especially when entrepreneurs seem eager to provide courts. If pickleball does end up as an odd footnote in sporting history, ideally it won't be taxpayers who are on the hook for converting courts to new uses.

Reporter C.J. Ciaramella is a finalist in magazine investigative reporting for his October 2023 cover story, "'I Knew They Were Scumbags,'" a nauseating piece on federal prison guards who confessed to rape—and got away with it:

Berman's daughter, Carleane, was one of at least a dozen women who were abused by corrupt correctional officers at FCC Coleman, a federal prison complex in Florida. In December, a Senate investigation revealed that those correctional officers had admitted in sworn interviews with internal affairs investigators that they had repeatedly raped women under their control.

Yet thanks to a little known Supreme Court precedent and a culture of corrupt self-protection inside the prison system, none of those guards were ever prosecuted—precisely because of the manner in which they confessed.

Senior Editor Jacob Sullum is a finalist in magazine commentary for "Biden's 'Marijuana Reform' Leaves Prohibition Untouched," from the January 2023 issue, in which he disputed the notion that President Joe Biden has fundamentally changed America's response to cannabis:

By himself, Biden does not have the authority to resolve the untenable conflict between state and federal marijuana laws. But despite his avowed transformation from an anti-drug zealot into a criminal justice reformer, he has stubbornly opposed efforts to repeal federal pot prohibition.

That position is contrary to the preferences expressed by more than two-thirds of Americans, including four-fifths of Democrats and half of Republicans. The most Biden is willing to offer them is his rhetorical support for decriminalizing cannabis consumption—a policy that was on the cutting edge of marijuana reform in the 1970s.

Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward is a finalist for best magazine columnist for "Is Chaos the Natural State of Congress?" from the December 2023 issue, "Don't Just Hire 'Better Cops.' Punish the Bad Ones," from the April 2023 issue, and (a personal favorite) "Bodies Against the State," from the February 2023 issue:

Governments do unconscionable things every day; it is in their nature. But not all transgressions are equal. In the wake of the Iran team's silent anthem protest, an Iranian journalist asked U.S. men's soccer captain Tyler Adams how he could play for a country that discriminates against black people like him. What makes the U.S. different, he replied, is that "we're continuing to make progress every day."

The most perfect and enduring image of a person weaponizing his body against the state was taken after the brutal suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The unknown Chinese man standing in front of a tank didn't have to hold a sign for the entire world to know exactly what the problem was.

Reporter Christian Britschgi is a finalist for best long-form magazine feature on business/government for "The Town Without Zoning," from the August/September 2023 issue, in which he reported on the fight over whether Caroline, New York, should impose its first-ever zoning code:

Whatever the outcome, the zoning debate raging in Caroline is revealing. It shows how even in a small community without major enterprises or serious growth pressures, planners can't adequately capture and account for everything people might want to do with their land.

There's a gap between what zoners can do and what they imagine they can design. That knowledge problem hasn't stopped cities far larger and more complex than Caroline from trying to scientifically sort themselves with zoning. They've developed quite large and complex problems as a result.

Associate Editor Billy Binion (hi, it's me) is a finalist for best activism journalism online for the web feature "They Fell Behind on Their Property Taxes. So the Government Sold Their Homes—and Kept the Profits," which explored an underreported form of legalized larceny: governments across the U.S. seizing people's homes over modest tax debts, selling the properties, and keeping the surplus equity.

Geraldine Tyler is a 94-year-old woman spending the twilight of her life in retirement, as 94-year-olds typically do. But there isn't much that's typical about it.

Tyler has spent the last several years fighting the government from an assisted living facility after falling $2,300 behind on her property taxes. No one disputes that she owed a debt. What is in dispute is if the government acted constitutionally when, to collect that debt, it seized her home, sold it, and kept the profit.

If that sounds like robbery, it's because, in some sense, it is. But it's currently legal in at least 12 states across the country, so long as the government is doing the robbing.

Senior Producer Austin Bragg, Director of Special Projects Meredith Bragg, Producer John Carter, and freelancer extraordinaire Andrew Heaton are finalists for best humor/satire writing across all broadcast mediums—TV, film, radio, or podcast—for the hilarious "Everything is political: board games," which "exposes" how Republicans and Democrats interpret everyone's favorite games from their partisan perspectives. (Spoiler: Everyone's going to lose.)

The Bragg brothers are nominated again in that same category—best humor/satire writing—along with Remy for "Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor Swift Parody)," in which lawmakers find culprits for the recent uptick in thefts—the victims.

Deputy Managing Editor of Video and Podcasts Natalie Dowzicky and Video Editor Regan Taylor are finalists in best commentary/analysis of TV across all media platforms for "What really happened at Waco," which explored a Netflix documentary on how the seeds of political polarization that roil our culture today were planted at Waco.

Editor at Large Matt Welch, Producer Justin Zuckerman, Motion Graphic Designer Adani Samat, and freelancer Paul Detrick are finalists in best activism journalism across any broadcast media for "The monumental free speech case the media ignored," which made the case that the legal odyssey and criminal prosecutions associated with Backpage were a direct assault on the First Amendment—despite receiving scant national attention from journalists and free speech advocates.

Associate Editor Liz Wolfe, Senior Producer Zach Weissmueller, Video Editor Danielle Thompson, Video Art Director Isaac Reese, and Producer Justin Zuckerman are finalists in best solutions journalism in any broadcast media for "Why homelessness is worse in California than Texas," which investigated why homelessness is almost five times as bad in the Golden State—and what can be done about it.

Finally, Senior Producer Zach Weissmueller, Video Editor Danielle Thompson, Video Art Director Isaac Reese, and Audio Engineer Ian Keyser are finalists in best documentary short for "The Supreme Court case that could upend the Clean Water Act," which did a deep dive into a Supreme Court case concerning a small-town Idaho couple that challenged how the Environmental Protection Agency defines a "wetland"—and what that means for property rights.

Winners will be announced on Sunday, June 23 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Subscribe to Reason here, watch our video journalism here, and find our podcasts here.

The post <em>Reason</em> Is a Finalist for 14 Southern California Journalism Awards appeared first on Reason.com.

On Friday, the Biden administration unveiled final Title IX regulations, nearly two years after the administration proposed dramatic changes to how colleges handle sexual assault allegations. The new rules largely mirror proposed regulations released last year and will effectively reversing Trump-era due process reforms. 

According to the final regulations, accused students will lose their right to a guaranteed live hearing with the opportunity to have a representative cross-examine their accuser. This is accompanied by a return to the "single-investigator model," which allows a single administrator to investigate and decide the outcome of a case.

Further, under the new rules, most schools will be required to use the "preponderance of the evidence" standard, which directs administrators to find a student responsible if just 51 percent of the evidence points to their guilt. Schools are also no longer required to provide accused students with the full content of the evidence against them. Instead, universities are only bound to provide students with a description of the "relevant evidence," which may be provided "orally" rather than in writing. 

This is a stunning rollback of due process rights for accused students. Under the new regulations, a student can be found responsible for sexually assaulting a classmate because a single administrator believed there was a 51 percent chance he had committed the assault, and this conclusion can be reached without ever allowing the accused student to know the full evidence against him or providing a hearing during which he could defend himself.

The rules also represent a continuing partisan tension in education policy. Following President Barack Obama's 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter, which first mandated campus sexual assault tribunals, regulations have flip-flopped consistently along party lines. In 2020, the Trump administration introduced broad due process rights for accused students while prohibiting schools from taking many cases that occurred off-campus. Today's reforms mark the third major change to Title IX regulations in as many presidents.

"Justice is only possible when hearings are fair for everyone. So today's regulations mean one thing: America's college students are less likely to receive justice if they find themselves in a Title IX proceeding," the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said in a Friday statement. "When administrators investigate the most serious kinds of campus misconduct, colleges should use the time-tested tools that make finding the truth more likely. But the new regulations no longer require them to do so."

So far, the new rules have been met with widespread praise from victims' rights groups.

"Students who experience sexual violence or discrimination shouldn't have to weigh our safety against our ability to go to class or participate in campus life," said college student Emily Bach in a press release from Know Your IX, a campus sexual assault awareness group. "The Biden Administration's updated Title IX rule will make sure that students who experience harm can come forward and seek support without jeopardizing our ability to graduate on time or get a degree."

But contrary to what many victims' rights activists say, due process rights for accused students are essential, not contrary, in treating campus sexual assault as a pressing issue. College sexual assault victims should be taken seriously—but taking their accusations with the gravity they deserve also means providing those they accuse with the right to defend themselves in kind.

Even if Title IX hearings don't have the gravity of criminal proceedings, they have the potential to upend accused students' lives. Students have been expelled, had their degrees revoked, or even been deported after being found responsible for a Title IX violation. 

If we want university investigations into sexual assault allegations to maintain any sheen of legitimacy, we can't entrust the power to inflict such severe penalties to a single administrator working behind closed doors. Instead, we need a process that puts due process front and center—any other system quickly becomes shamefully untrustworthy.

The post New Title IX Rules Erase Campus Due Process Protections appeared first on Reason.com.