In a baffling move, the embattled Democratic presidential candidate has pledged to undo Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s restoration of due process on American college campuses.
Joe Biden was instrumental in interpreting Title IX legislation to make it easier for colleges and universities to punish male students on the basis of allegations and accusations of sexual assault and harassment.
Since then, he has been accused of sexual assault by former staffer Tara Reade.
Joe Biden remains the presumptive nominee for the Democrats despite the allegations, as he should be. Everyone in America should be considered innocent until proven guilty. Despite the fact that he’s currently benefiting from this due process he has denied so many young men over the last decade, he has apparently not learned his lesson.
In a baffling move, the embattled Democratic presidential candidate has pledged to undo Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s restoration of due process on American college campuses.
In a statement, Biden said that DeVos’ restoration of the principle of due process is actually an attempt by the Trump administration to “shame and silence” survivors.
“It’s wrong. And, it will be put to a quick end in January 2021, because as president, I’ll be right where I always have been throughout my career—on the side of survivors, who deserve to have their voices heard, their claims taken seriously and investigated, and their rights upheld.”
Biden is actually pledging to protect false accusers and enable the railroading of innocent young men even as he expects Americans and American institutions to presume his own innocence.
It’s a startling display of hypocrisy, and Biden has been blasted by the Trump Campaign as a result:
“Before Tara Reade’s assault accusations, Biden was unwavering in a presumption of guilt for the accused including Brett Kavanaugh. That presumption of guilt included the disastrous Title IX regulations under the Obama-Biden administration, making it more difficult on college campuses for the accused to receive a fair hearing and their due process rights. Does Joe still stand by his presumption of guilt for the accused – or has he set a new standard for himself in the face of his own sexual assault accusations from a former staffer?”
Whether Joe Biden is innocent or guilty of sexually assaulting Tara Reade in 1993, the double standard being advocated by the Biden team is nonsensical. There cannot be one set of standards for presidential nominees and another for college students.
Biden’s statement goes on to say that the restoration of due process on college campuses: “lets colleges off the hook for protecting students, by permitting them to choose to investigate only more extreme acts of violence and harassment and requiring them to investigate in a way that dissuades survivors from coming forward. Survivors deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced.”
The part is missed is that in so many instances, allegations and accusations have replaced evidence and investigation, and that definitions of just what constitutes sexual harassment have become shockingly opaque.
It seems clear that Biden either has no idea what due process means, which is distressing, or, worse, he knows and simply doesn’t care.
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