If I get busted for driving around North Dakota with an ounce of weed, my job shouldn't be able to fire me?
Students represent the school they attend, on or off campus, just like I represent my job even if I'm not there. Why shouldn't they be able to decide?
This is exactly the issue under discussion here: the difference between crimes that come under governmental criminal justice systems and thus come under the Constitutional and other protections and guidelines thus mandated, versus the regulations imposed by employers, educators, etc., that can (and do) operate under other regulations. I could be fired from my job for a number of possible infractions of my employers rules without committing any crime. Including some that occur off work.
The issue in this OP is somewhat more complex in that the universities are required by Title IX to establish rules for how to handle issues that are not crimes per se but relate to "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Thus the University has to meet these Federal requirements or risk losing Federal grants.
Believe me, universities do not particularly want to be involved in this fashion, but I personally do believe that they, and businesses and other organizations, should be responsible for protecting their employees and others they supervise (e.g. students) from discrimination, etc. in their working/learning environment. And this is not just a no-skin-off-my back theory for me: my job falls squarely under Title IX requirements as a faculty member and I am subject to exactly the same rules, possibility of accusations, hearing processes, and possible loss of my position/appointment as the students.
The real issue then is how to create and apply university-based rules as fairly as possible for both the accuser and to the accused, particularly given that these rules, and the associated punishments, do not fall under governmental criminal justice systems and therefore do not have the same mandated associated protections. Some courts, I believe appropriately, have determined that the punishment of being kicked out of school is substantial enough to require higher protection levels for the accused than some universities have provided. But to my knowledge no court has ruled that university regulations on sexual harassment for eg. must be
identical to the regulations and processes in the criminal justice system, in part because they are not dealing with governmental crimes.
From anecdotal information I tend to believe that protections for the accused should be somewhat stronger, but I do not know how it works overall and also I recognize that for many decades and centuries it was the (female) accuser who suffered all the disadvantages to the point that most guilty individuals went unpunished and sexual predators flourished.
It is a complex issue, one that cannot be decided on through fake outrage or bombast. I found the overall ACLU position reasonable and largely focused on issues other than protections for the accuser versus the accused. I have mixed feelings of where I stand on the latter, and frankly I will need to do more research and think more about this. But you know, sometimes there are situations that lead to compromises that are not perfectly fair to either side... It sucks, but it might be the best humans can do.
