Rape is a heinous crime.
Yet the Obama administration seems to have no hesitation in politicizing it. The administration is relying on a hopped up figure that one in five women on campus are victims of sexual assault to create a kind of hysteria about rape.
Positioning itself as the protector of women in the lead up to the midterms, the administration is urging colleges and universities to “get tough” about sexual assault.
The tougher and more just stand: take rapists to court and, if convicted, punish them to the fullest extent of the law.
We know that this takes courage from the victim and isn't a cakewalk.
And it isn't enough for the administration. The administration wants insta-punishments for the assused without the bother of going to court.
Since 2011, the Department of Education has been urging institutions of higher education to conduct hearings on rape accusations that drastically reduce the due process our legal system accords the accused.
Thomas Sowell, who believes rape belongs in court and not before some university hearing board, writes:
Why are rapists not reported to the police and prosecuted in a court of law?
Apparently this is because of some college women who say that they were raped and are dissatisfied with a legal system that does not automatically take their word for it against the word of someone who has been accused and denies the charge.
There seem to be a dangerously large number of people who think that the law exists to give them whatever they want — even when that means denying other people the same rights that they claim for themselves.
Nowhere is this self-centered attitude more common than on college campuses. …
This is likely to sound harsh to some. But the sad fact is that the administration is proposing measures that stack the cards against the accused. We commend the courage of the woman who will take her rapist to court. We also know that sometimes false charges are lodged. Due process for the accused, a cornerstone of our system, may be painful but it works.
The irony, according to Sowell, is that those who would dishonor our tradition of due process tend to be the same people who aren't bothered by an atmosphere on campus that likely leads to more confusion and more sexual assaults:
But those who are whipping up the lynch-mob mentality have shown far less interest in stopping rape than in politicizing it.
Many of the politically correct crusaders are the same people who have pushed for unisex living arrangements on campus, including unisex bathrooms, and who have put condom machines in dormitories and turned freshman orientation programs into a venue for sexual “liberation” propaganda.
Whipping up mysteria is the opposite of getting to the truth about sexual assaults. It does not make the campus safer for young women (and young men) and is unworthy of the people who lead our country.