Title IX was written with good intentions in 1972 to prevent educational discrimination based on sex. One achievement included equal opportunity for both men and women to play school-sanctioned sports.

Unfortunately, the law has since been perverted far beyond its original intent. It’s become a misguided substitute on college campuses for a court of law when accusations of sexual assault are made.

Rape is a serious charge for all parties involved. Accusations must be investigated fully and the accused also must be accorded all rights under the due process clauses of the fifth and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

If there’s enough evidence, a prosecutor is obligated to pursue criminal charges against the accused with final decisions coming from a jury and a judge. That’s been our system for more than two centuries.

Instead, Title IX has been misused for many years, a process that was accelerated during the Obama Administration.

Universities across America have kidnapped Title IX to improperly judge accusations of rape by creating panels of ill-informed and sometimes heavily biased students, faculty and staff. Many of those sitting in judgment on these panels have little or no experience with the law or hold deeply-held personal beliefs that the goals of the #metoo movement always trump the Bill of Rights and the Constitution itself.

These kinds of decisions should never be made outside the courts because colleges and universities — including campus police departments — lack expertise in evidence gathering while also having a serious conflict of interest to preserve the reputations of their respective institutions.

Maintaining prestige creates incentives for schools to make criminal charges disappear, usually by expelling accused students and marking them for life without any consideration for true justice. Our nation’s alleged institutions of free thinking and higher learning could care less about due process and rights of the accused.

Universities also have an incentive to preserve peace on campus by kowtowing to combative leftists and strident feminists (and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee) who essentially believe that all men accused of rape are guilty and could care less about actual evidence.

Thank goodness for an education secretary, Betsy DeVos, who finally gets it about Title IX, the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution.

Mike Kersmarki
Tampa, FL

Contact Mike Kersmarki at mike.kersmarki ‘at’ gmail.com