An example of system working as it should

OKLAHOMA running back Rodney Anderson won't be made to face charges of sexual assault, providing a reminder of why the legal system — not any university — is the proper venue to adjudicate such cases.

A former OU student accused Anderson, 21, of raping her at her apartment in November after they had met at a bar. She said she had been drinking and only remembered being assaulted after talking to a friend two weeks later. Anderson immediately denied the accusation, and later passed a lie-detector test administered by a retired FBI polygraph examiner.

In making his announcement last week, Cleveland County District Attorney Greg Mashburn noted that Norman police had thoroughly investigated the woman’s allegations and turned the findings over to “a team of my best prosecutors — frankly, three of the finest sex crimes prosecutors in the state of Oklahoma.” They determined Anderson had done nothing wrong.

This is how the system should work — with law enforcement professionals determining a case’s merits. On too many college campuses the past several years, due process and civil rights have been tossed aside as universities have sought to comply with Title IX guidelines outlined in “Dear Colleague” letters sent by the Obama administration in 2010 and 2011.

The guidelines allowed for assault cases to be heard by university administrators or panels. Universities were told to use a preponderance of the evidence, instead of the much stricter “beyond a reasonable doubt,” as the threshold to determine whether someone had committed sexual assault.

Cross-examination was discouraged, the accused often faced the allegations without benefit of counsel, and campuses allowed complainants to appeal decisions. Those found guilty could be expelled, and often were.

As a result, you had cases such as one at the University of Colorado-Pueblo, where an athlete was accused of sexually assaulting a female trainer. The trainer said no rape occurred. University officials said Title IX rules allowed them to be the judge of that, and they found the accused guilty and expelled him.

At the University of Southern California, a football player was expelled following a complaint that he had abused his girlfriend. The girlfriend told officials repeatedly that what a witness saw was simply playful “roughhousing” in her front yard, and that she absolutely had not been assaulted. The school’s Title IX coordinator said otherwise.

At Amherst College, a male student was expelled for sexual assault, even though, as Reason.com reported, “he had credible evidence that his accuser had assaulted him.”

Women have been victimized, too. U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos cites a case where a female student told her school she had been sexually assaulted. The university “told her she would have to prosecute the case herself. Without any legal training whatsoever, she had to prepare an opening statement, fix exhibits and find witnesses.”

DeVoss, to her credit, is revisiting the Title IX guidelines to provide more balance. Real crimes should always be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but legal protection on college campuses needs to exist for accuser and accused alike.