Hans Bader is a frequent contributor at College Insurrection. When he saw this in the Times, he wrote a letter and they ran it in the online edition.

Via the Examiner:

Proof and campus rape: Standards for campus disciplinary proceedings

Yesterday, the New York Times carried my letter to the editor about evidentiary standards in college disciplinary proceedings over rape and sexual harassment, which it entitled “Proof and Campus Rape.” The letter, which was published only in the Times’ online edition, was too short to provide a detailed discussion of the subject, so I am adding additional discussion below for the benefit of readers of both the Times and the Examiner.

As I noted in the Times,

It is unfortunate that the federal government now seeks to restrict the due process rights of students accused of sexual assault or harassment. As your editorial notes, “the Department of Education recommended that universities use ‘preponderance of the evidence’ as the standard of proof instead of the higher ‘clear and convincing’ standard.” But that higher standard protected due process.

As a Yale Law Journal article noted in 1987, “Courts, universities and student defendants all seem to agree that the appropriate standard of proof in student disciplinary cases is one of ‘clear and convincing’ evidence.”

The White House Task Force you cite demanded that students “not be allowed to personally cross-examine each other.” That contradicts court rulings like Donohue v. Baker (1997), which concluded that cross-examination must be allowed in certain campus disciplinary hearings.