Dartmouth College is currently hosting a ‘Summit on Sexual Assault’, a conference seeking to “educate campus and community on sexual assault prevention.” But, surprising absolutely no one, the list of speakers includes absolutely no one critical about the handling of due process in these investigations.

Read more about this echo-chamber of a conference in KC Johnson’s article at Minding the Campus:

A One-Sided Conference on Sexual Assault

The crusade to weaken due process rights of students accused of sexual assault traveled this week to Dartmouth, which is hosting a one-week conference entitled, “Summit on Sexual Assault.” As FIRE’s Peter Bonilla pointed out, the “matter of due process for accused didn’t make the agenda”; the presenters don’t include any civil libertarians or defense attorneys. Of course, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise, given the college’s chief coordinator on the issue, Amanda Childress, mused about the possibility of expelling students based solely on an (uninvestigated) allegation. Perhaps recognizing the public relations problem, Childress wasn’t scheduled to speak during the public portions of the conference.

Responding to common-sense concerns that school tribunals aren’t capable of conducting complex investigations of violent crimes, OCR head Catherine Lhamon, pushed back: “I resist pretty hard the idea that schools don’t have a role in this.” Featured speakers included Dean Sue Wasiolek, who spoke on a panel entitled, “News from the Front Lines: Student Conduct Systems.” Earlier this year, Wasiolek explained to a Durham judge that at Duke, when an intoxicated male and an intoxicated female have sexual intercourse, Duke considers the male student a rapist and the female student a victim.

One of the conference co-organizers, David Lisak, stressed the danger of campus serial rapists: “It’s pretty clear that in a community like a college campus, you will expect and you will see that there are serial offenders, and they account for the vast majority of sexual assaults that occur in that community.” Incredibly, he suggested that colleges should handle the investigation for such dangerous criminals themselves (summarized WBUR: “He’s encouraging colleges to stay away from the trap of he-said-she-said scenarios. Instead, Lisak says schools need to bring in enough witnesses to establish that an offender is a serial offender”) rather than turning the matter over to local law enforcement.