Obama Admin Eats Away At Civil Liberties: Due Process Is Discrimination
There's a Jonathan Turley op-ed in USA Today on the reduction of due process in sexual misconduct cases at universities demanded by the Obama administration. What Turley calls a "seemingly friendly" letter making this demand went out from the administration to schools:

If they did not, the letter warned, they could lose federal funding and face discrimination charges discrimination. The helpful "colleague" on the other side of the letter was Russlynn Ali, then assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education. She explained that the reduction of protections for students was essential for preserving education as "the great equalizer in America."

Ali just resigned, providing an opening for the Obama administration to reconsider. That's overdue because the interpretation of due process as a form of discrimination has shaken the academic community, which is deeply divided on whether to yield to the overt threats. It is a Faustian bargain for academics: Either strip students and faculty of basic due process protections or be declared discriminatory.

In the past, many schools have required significant evidence to find students or faculty guilty, often a "clear preponderance" or "clear and convincing evidence." These standards require less than the criminal "beyond the reasonable doubt" standard but still a 75% or 80% certainty of guilt. The administration, however, demands that schools adopt the lowest evidentiary standard short of a presumption of guilt -- "preponderance of the evidence," just slightly above a 50-50 determination.

Because many of these cases involve the classic "he-said-she-said" situation, they come to the university as an even split based on opposing testimony. Add in the fact that many of these cases involve drinking, and the "preponderance" standard becomes a recipe for injustice. Even the slightest evidence can dictate the result and tends to favor conviction.

While this low standard is used in some civil cases, the accused is generally afforded other protections that the Obama administration directive strips from the accused. For instance, the directive discourages schools from allowing a student or faculty member to question the accuser. And schools have seized on that. Last month, a Georgia college student was expelled after rape allegations without the opportunity to confront the accuser or even, the student alleges, know the names of other witnesses in the case. After a judge halted the expulsion, the parties reached an "undisclosed resolution."

The Supreme Court has insisted in criminal cases that the right to confront the accuser must be honored even when a court believes that the victim's testimony is highly credible. The court stated in 2004 that "dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with a jury trial because the defendant is obviously guilty." Yet, the administration insists that this right "may be traumatic or intimidating (for the victim), thereby possibly escalating or perpetuating a hostile environment."

Obama is no friend to civil liberties and people who voted for him -- happily, thinking he would be the anti-Bush -- need to wake up to what they've ushered in and put some pressure on their representatives and The White House.

I'm not hopeful that things will change in any substantial way, but maybe by recognizing what dangerous waters we're now in, and taking some action to protest, people will be a little more interested in the libertarian candidates the next time around.

Note the word "liberty" tucked in there in "libertarian." It's actually pretty essential to the philosophy of anybody calling themselves libertarian, and it's what's going missing more and more frequently in this country, at TSA checkpoints, in drug war arrests, in pushes for warrantless surveillance, in civil asset forfeiture when no crime has been committed, and in so many ways.

Wake up before the police wake you up and cart you away.

And don't be too quick to pooh-pooh that thinking.

With as many ridiculous laws on the books as we have, we're all very committing felonies daily -- sometimes, maybe just by sitting in our home, drinking coffee, and reading a blog.