Frequent College Insurrection contributor Hans Bader has written a new piece for the Daily Caller.

Punishment Without Trial: The Department of Education Attacks Students’ Due Process Rights

How would you feel if you could be expelled from your dorm, or prevented from attending a class, just because someone accused you of something — even if the accusation never led to a finding of guilt, or even a formal investigation? That’s what the Education Department recently required at Tufts University in Massachusetts. It demanded that Tufts impose such “interim measures,” to settle a federal Title IX investigation brought against it after it found a student not guilty of sexually assaulting a classmate.

Such measures violate students’ due process rights. But this frightening practice is likely to spread to other colleges across America, since Title IX applies to any college whose students get federal financial aid, and the Education Department can cut off all aid to a college that doesn’t comply with its interpretation of Title IX. That’s a financial death sentence for most colleges.

The settlement requires “that the University provide interim measures during the course of a complaint, or a university-initiated investigation; an explicit statement that interim measures are available even if the complainant does not file or continue to pursue a complaint.”

“Interim measures” are measures taken against the accused before he is even found guilty. Things like excluding the accused from a classroom or dorm he shares with the accuser. Applying such measures “even if the complainant does not” pursue a complaint could result in them continuing indefinitely, and could result in the accused being excluded from classes or dormitories without ever having any opportunity to defend himself!