When the pendulum swings too far...

... we wind up with goofy results. If accurate, this story points that out:

In Today's 'Wall Street Journal': University Finds Student Guilty of Sexual Assault While Police Charge Accuser for Lying About ItJuly 15, 2011
GRAND FORKS, N.D., July 15, 2011—In a stark demonstration of the failure of campus judicial procedures, the University of North Dakota (UND) has found a student guilty of sexual assault despite the fact that local police refused to charge him with a crime and instead charged his accuser for lying about the incident. Former student Caleb Warner has been banned by UND from stepping foot on any state public campus for three years. Meanwhile, his accuser has been wanted by the Grand Forks Sheriff's Department for more than a year on the charge of making a false report to law enforcement. Warner has turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to help remedy this injustice.
More: http://www.linkedin.com/share?viewLink=&sid=s475008170&url=http%3A%2F%2Flnkd%2Ein%2FuuNyNU&urlhash=fwrp&pk=member-home&pp=5&poster=42909920&uid=5497971849264377856&trk=NUS_UNIU_SHARE-title

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights must bear some responsibility, if these kinds of adjudications become commonplace on our campuses:

http://www.linkedin.com/share?viewLink=&sid=s475008170&url=http%3A%2F%2Flnkd%2Ein%2FuuNyNU&urlhash=fwrp&pk=member-home&pp=5&poster=42909920&uid=5497971849264377856&trk=NUS_UNIU_SHARE-title

I'll take this a step farther and say that the US DOE has been on a regulatory binge lately. SOme of what it's promulgated makes sense to me. For instance, its "gainful employment" regulations were overdue. As I have said in other postings on this Blog, the dismal record of federal-loan repayments by students who attend for-profit universities demanded that Uncle Sam hold these organizations responsible for properly preparing their attendees to get good jobs... or else lose the right to access federal loan funds.

The regs forbidding incentive payments by the for-profits to their admissions officers are also needed. Again, as I have noted on this site, some for-profits seem to consider the fines and settlements they've made in this regard to be simply a cost of doing business. DOE Secretary Arne Duncan and crew should come down hard enough on these organizations to discourage them from such illegal conduct in the future.

On the other hand, DOE's brainstorm about requiring schools, that deliver online courses, to comply with the corporation laws of every state in which even one student signs up for a course, or risk loss of eligibility for federal financial aid for such student(s), is a case of regulatory hubris. As noted by me earlier this week, a federal judge in Washington last Tuesday ruled that DOE didn't follow the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act in promulgating these regs. When DOE goes back to the drawing board, and holds the requisite hearings, etc., let's hope the bureaucrats are prepared to listen to reason.

Meanwhile, the pendulum needs to be put back into equilibrium so far as sexual assaults are concerned. Outcomes, such as the one noted at the start of this posting, should never be allowed to happen. (Of course, there are two sides to every story, and I for one am not prepared to censure the university involved, until we see where the case goes from here.)