White House pushes a 'war on men' in response to the 'war on women'
By Ashe Schow | APRIL 29, 2014 AT 4:09 PM Topics: Beltway Confidential
Education Joe Biden War on Women Photo - Vice President Joe Biden (AP)
Vice President Joe Biden (AP) Wouldn’t it be nice if just once in
Washington, helping one group didn’t mean hurting another?  Well that
day is not today, as Vice President Joe Biden continued to push efforts
designed to help female students who have been sexually assaulted that
will actually remove due process for the men accused.  Announcing the
results of the first report from the White House Task Force to Protect
Students from Sexual Assault and a question-and-answer document from
the Department of Education, Biden made clear that men are 100 percent
to blame, even when both parties are intoxicated.  The recommendations
outlined in the report contain some mild, non-controversial measures,
including clearly articulating campus rules and guidelines, urging
colleges to adopt policies that have shown success at other campuses and
to ensure sexual assault reporting remains confidential.  Sign Up for
the Politics Today newsletter!  But other recommendations perpetuate a
culture of presuming a man is guilty before any evidence is presented.
The report begins with a ridiculous statistic that “one in five women is
sexually assaulted in college.” American Enterprise Institute scholar
Christina Hoff Sommers recently debunked this statistic from the Centers
for Disease Control by pointing out that the number was wildly different
from the Department of Justice's own crime statistics.  Sommers noted
that the CDC arrived at their one-in-five statistic by counting
all alcohol-induced sexual encounters (even those between committed
partners or married couples) as rape, and other outrageous responses. This
inflates the statistic and prevents meaningful reforms from taking place.
That false statistic aside, the task force's recommendations help remove
due process from the accused by branding students as rapists based on
limited evidence and allowing accusers to appeal a not-guilty finding
by campus disciplinary panels.  Rape is a serious problem, but even on
college campuses, “innocent until proven guilty” should prevail.