ASHE SCHOW: Due process on campus needs a congressional champion.

It’s a sad day in America when due process rights granted in the Constitution need protection, but here we are.

On college campuses across the country, students — particularly male students — are learning the hard way that they have little if any due process rights should they ever be accused of sexual assault. Indeed, an accusation is all that’s needed to destroy or severely alter their future.

The reason for this comes from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which has reinterpreted Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to view sexual assault as a form of gender discrimination instead of a crime. It therefore must be treated as a disciplinary matter, more closely aligned with plagiarism than the felony crime it actually is.

And since Title IX and OCR’s subsequent, infamous “Dear Colleague” letter recommend inadequate due process rights for those accused, following those guidelines has been shown in at least one instance to be an acceptable excuse for subverting the Constitution. For instance, although Title IX theoretically requires a fair hearing for the accused, it also requires a Title IX officer to oversee the investigation of sexual assault complaints and be a victim’s advocate, thereby placing the power of the office behind the accuser and against the accused. . . .

It is politically dangerous these days to even suggest that schools provide due process to those accused of sexual assault. Especially since these days all that is needed to brand someone a rapist is an uncorroborated accusation. But there must be someone in Congress brave enough to take up the issue and offer a bill that either amends existing law or requires colleges to provide due process to students who are accused.

One would hope.