Your editorial ("Don't open the door to sexual assault on campus," Sept. 11) demonstrates a frightening "ends justifies the means" attitude unworthy of a major metropolitan newspaper. I am certainly no fan of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos or President Donald Trump, but when she suggests that Obama policies that serve to largely eradicate a central tenet of our society that guarantees due process for persons accused of wrongful conduct, criminal or civil, need to be revisited, The Sun asserts that she favors the rights of "perpetrators" (of rape) over the rights of women.
While it is clear that these policies began as a good faith attempt to make sure that accusations of sexual misconduct were not taken lightly, in that process many institutions eradicated simple protections such as right to counsel, right to confront one's accuser and the right to be judged by a fair and balanced standard in favor of what appears to have all the trappings of a kangaroo court.
The justification you have given is, essentially, this is no big deal because this "isn't even about prison, it is usually about getting kicked out of school or perhaps some adverse publicity." It is apparent that The Sun refuses to allow the increased possibility of an incorrect finding that would scar the accused for the rest of his/her life to cloud this mindless pursuit of political correctness.
Were it a child of The Sun's editors being treated like this, it is my guess that an expulsion assisted by a proceeding lacking the basics of due process would not sit well with them. I applaud the efforts to assure fairness for the alleged victims of such acts, but, just as we cannot condone rape and sexual assault anywhere, neither can we condone dispensing with our cherished concepts of due process.
Gerard Patrick Martin, Baltimore
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