Fire, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, has published a report showing that the overwhelming majority of top colleges in America fail to guarantee fair hearings for students accused of sexual misconduct. Their findings include:

• 3 in 4 top universities do not guarantee presumption of innocence in campus proceedings.
• 9 in 10 top universities do not guarantee meaningful cross-examination in cases of alleged sexual misconduct.
• None of the surveyed institutions guarantee all the due process protections required under the new, proposed Title IX regulations.
• Polling shows students overwhelmingly want due process protections, but universities fail to deliver.

[Harvard Zealots Abuse Title IX to Nail the Accused]

FIRE scrutinized 53 American universities to assess whether they honor any of the 10 fundamental procedural safeguards they guarantee students, including the presumption of innocence, the right to impartial fact-finders, and the right to appeal. “Of the 53 universities studied, 47 receive a D or F grade, meaning that they guarantee no more than 4 of the 10 elements rated.”

College students, also surveyed by FIRE this year about their views on campus due process protections, agree with Fire’s new report:

• 85 percent of students think their accused classmates should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but only 26 percent of America’s top universities guarantee students that protection.
• Although three-quarters of students support cross-examination, only 1 in 10 institutions guarantees students a meaningful opportunity to cross-examine witnesses.
• 8 in 10 students think students accused of breaking the law should be allowed to have a lawyer present in campus judicial proceedings, but only one institution out of 53 surveyed allows attorneys to participate without significant limitations.

• This landscape may shift if the Department of Education’s proposed regulations are enacted. 87 percent of institutions receive a D or F for their failure to protect the due process rights of students accused of sexual misconduct, but the proposed regulations would raise surveyed universities’ grades to a C or better.