Your tuition (and government money) at "work"---Due process for accused students would ‘chill’ assault reports, Texas Tech says

Due process for accused students would ‘chill’ assault reports, Texas Tech says

Texas Tech University doesn’t want anything to get in the way of students reporting their alleged sexual assaults. 
Not even a fair hearing for those they accuse.

The Daily Toreador reports that the administration wants students to see the disciplinary process as a “learning experience,” so giving them the common trappings of a courtroom would be harmful.

According to Dean of Students Amy Murphy:

Also a part of this model, she said, is the decision that students are not able to cross-examine witnesses, nor are the students’ advisers, during the hearing.

If cross-examination were to be allowed, she said, it would create a chilling effect for future possible reports.

“We want responding and reporting parties to talk to that investigator about the questions that they have for witnesses,” Murphy said, “the information that they want to see in that investigation report.”

That “investigator,” by the way, is “neutral,” according to Murphy.

Student Andy Johnson evidently has more intelligence than his dean:

“I can’t speak for other people and I’m only thinking about if I were accused,” he said, “but if it were me I’d be mad that no one could represent me. I’m a student. How am I supposed to know what to say and what not to say?”

He said if he could change the system, he would make it more like a court system because college is his real world right now, so it should resemble the real world.

In a related article, we’re told four times just how “unbiased” this investigator is:

The investigator, an unbiased fact gatherer within the Office of Student Conduct, will speak first with the student accused in the report or the person who initially filed the report, depending on the type of case, [Associate Director Brittany Todd] said. …

Susan Kruth of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education rips apart these justifications for depriving students of due process...