Not All Men Rape

Rape is a horrible crime -- and one that must not be tolerated. It happens everywhere, in developed as well as underdeveloped nations -- by young and older men alike.

In America, university campuses have too often, and too many times turned a blind eye to rape. And that, of course, cannot and must not be tolerated. At the same time, public policy must not give license to accuse any and all university men without hard and convincing evidence.

Betsy DeVos, one of Trump's wealthy cronies whom he named Secretary of Education in spite of the fact that she knew nothing whatsoever about public education and only because of her money and connections, finally made one wise decision since assuming her office. What she did was to strike a key part of a far too liberal Obama era policy that allowed accusations of rape to go forward on university campuses based on only the slimmest and lowest level of evidence. DeVos changed all that, insisting that colleges should be free to apply more rigorous tests to accusations of rape, specifically to apply a standard requiring “clear and convincing evidence.”

This move was much needed to counteract the far too liberal license promulgated during the Obama era – a license that accused and prosecuted a good many men, many of whom may have been innocent, based only on circumstantial evidence of the commission of rape.

It’s hard to complement one of Trump’s many poor choices. There is no question that DeVos is woefully unprepared, in general, to lead and oversee education in America. But, she did, nonetheless, do something important and necessary here.

Perhaps, it took a woman to appreciate injustice in rape laws, and to have the balls to do something about it. DeVos has many shortcomings, but no one has ever suggested that she is not a woman. To her credit, she brought intelligent insight to bear on an over-stepping of the law governing rape on American campuses.