Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 2017)
SEPTEMBER 15, 2017, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM DeVos and campus sexual assault By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS Education Secretary Betsy De- Vos talked to lots of people—victims, students who said they were falsely accused and the family members of both —before she started to reform a policy instituted under President Barack Obama that instructs college campuses on how to deal with allega- tions of sexual assault. In the not so distant past, university admin- istrators often failed to protect female students or establish a culture that discouraged aggres- sive predatory behavior. In such an atmosphere, victims of sexual assault had good reason to fear reporting crimes committed against them lest they be subjected to an on- slaught of questions that looked for fault in their behavior, instead of that of their attackers. With the rise of feminism, the par- adigm shifted. Authorities generally stopped looking for excuses to explain away violent or abusive acts. In the criminal justice system, the word was out—don’t blame the victim. And then, as happens, the move- ment to stand up for victims morphed into something different. In 2011, the Offi ce of Civil Rights for the Educa- tion Department sent a “Dear Col- league” letter to colleges with new guidelines for handling sexual assault cases. The letter threatened to with- hold funds from institutions that did not adhere to the new policy, which requires schools to investigate all complaints of sexual assault and details how they must conduct disciplinary proceedings. Desperate not to appear insensitive to victims of sexual assault, academia went overboard. The burden shifted from the accuser to the accused. The horror stories made news. Male stu- dents charged with assault were pre- sumed guilty. Tribunals had the ability to expel students who were denied due process. In The Atlantic, Emily Yoffe wrote about a University of Massachusetts, Amherst junior who was accused of sexual assault in 2014. His accuser wrote that the two students had got- ten high together, then engaged in foreplay. She decided to leave. Later she wrote, “as my RA (resident ad- viser) training kicked in, I realized I’d been sexually assaulted.” Police investigated the case and never charged Kwado Bonsu. But the university restricted Bonsu’s move- ment on campus, while investigating him. Yoffe wrote that the university found Bonsu was not responsible for sexual misconduct, but suspended him for not adhering to its restrictions. Bonsu sued and his case was settled confi dentially. “Defi nitions of sexual wrongdoing on college campuses are now seriously over-broad,” four Harvard law profes- sors wrote in an August paper, Fair- ness to All Students under Title IX, that challenged the Obama policy. “They go way beyond accepted legal defi ni- tions of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. They often include sexual conduct that is merely unwelcome, even if it does not create a hostile en- vironment, even if the person accused had no way of knowing it was un- wanted, and even if the accuser’s sense that it was unwelcome arose after the encounter. The defi nitions often in- clude mere speech about sexual mat- ters.” The Harvard law profes- sors noted, “The procedures for enforcing these defi ni- tions are frequently so un- fair as to be truly shocking. Some colleges and universi- ties fail even to give students the complaint against them, or notice of the factual ba- sis of charges, the evidence gathered, or the identities of witness- es.” Their decision to release this memo, said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, sends the message that if you want to defend the policy, “you’re not going to have to argue with Libertarians and conservatives” only, you are going to have to argue with left-leaning legal scholars who also care about fairness and due process. That makes it harder to push the notion that if you are truly outraged about rape, you are willing to go over- board. That’s the tack former Vice Presi- dent Joe Biden took when he wrote on Facebook, “Sexual assault is the ultimate abuse of power, and its perni- cious presence in our schools is unac- ceptable. Policies that do not treat this epidemic with the utmost seriousness are an insult to the lives it has damaged and the survivors who have worked so hard to make positive change.” Biden urged like-minded indi- viduals to “speak up. Any rollback of Title IX protections will hurt your classmates, your students, your friends, your sisters. Make your views known.” There are many reasons DeVos could have decided to let the current policy continue. The White House released a state- ment that applauded DeVos’ deci- sion “to overhaul the Department of Education’s approach to campus sexual assault enforcement under Title IX. These efforts will produce better policy—one that ensures that sexual assault is taken seriously on campuses without denying the accused the fun- damental protections of due process.” DeVos didn’t detail how the rules will change but she said her offi ce will seek feedback from the public and universities to develop new rules, a decision the White House also ap- plauded. “So much momentum has built up for federally driven changes in campus discipline and rules, so much momen- tum for unreasonableness,” Olson said, but the unfairness was so striking that it brought together feminists, Liber- tarians and Trump supporters. Still, he added, “It took a great deal of courage for her to do this. It would have been easy for her to fi nd some way to dodge it, or postpone it.” Keizer’s 9/11 memorial pipe band, prayer, short respectful speeches and even a breakfast after the ceremony. It is a very professional and mov- ing event to remember that day and the sacrifi ces made. We are very fortu- nate to have such a patriotic fi re dis- trict and city. It moves me every year I attend and it makes me proud to live in Keizer. Thank you, Keizer Fire Dis- trict for all that you do for our com- munity. John P. Rizzo, Keizer guest opinion Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com MANAGING EDITOR SUBSCRIPTIONS Eric A. Howald editor@keizertimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Derek Wiley news@keizertimes.com One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY ADVERTISING Publication No: USPS 679-430 Paula Moseley advertising@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to: PRODUCTION MANAGER Andrew Jackson Keizertimes Circulation graphics@keizertimes.com 142 Chemawa Road N. LEGAL NOTICES Keizer, OR 97303 legals@keizertimes.com EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Zaitz publisher@keizertimes.com BUSINESS MANAGER Laurie Painter billing@keizertimes.com Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon RECEPTION Lori Beyeler INTERN Random Pendragon facebook.com/keizertimes By MICHAEL GERSON “The last temptation is the great- est treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” — T.S. Eliot We have every reason to assume the worst when it comes to President Trump’s motivation in rescinding DACA—the program al- lowing undocumented immigrants to live and work openly if they came to the United States as children. Trump’s pub- lic justifi cation is that President Obama’s creation of DACA by ex- ecutive action was unconstitutional. A usurpation of Congress. A process violation. Yet Trump didn’t give a fi g for constitutional niceties in his initial order to keep people from certain Muslim-majority countries out of the U.S. Now, to potentially send Hispanics out of the country, he has discovered an appreciation for pro- cess and precedent. There is a theme here, and it is not respect for the rule of law. Trump does not deserve the benefi t of the doubt when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity. Recently, and with increasing fre- quency, he has displayed malevolent prejudice for political reasons. His action on DACA is another install- ment in this disturbing series. But, apart from Trump’s moti- vations, was his action on DACA the right deed? Not, certainly, by the measure of its outcome. Trump has removed reasonable protec- tions from a sympathetic group. It would be a grave injustice to send the Dreamers “home” to countries where many have hardly visited. A democracy, however, consid- ers more than outcomes, or else the American system of government would be the Chinese system of government. And the constitutional case concerning DACA is not obvi- ous. The legal matter at issue: Does the executive branch have enough discre- tion and authority to interpret immigration laws in the manner set out by Obama—essen- tially as a new pseudo- program that grants benefi ts to a group that Congress did not mark out for ben- efi ts? The courts have granted broad discretion to immigration offi cials in determining who to deport and who not to deport. The fact that the law is not applied equally in every case does not invalidate the just ap- plication of the law in any case. But the further question is: Can that dis- cretion be applied to an entire class of undocumented people who are then granted a package of benefi ts (including work permits, advance parole to travel in and out of the country and, eventually, Social Se- curity and Medicare)? For most of his presidency, Obama maintained that creating such a pro- gram by executive action would be improper overreach. In 2012, out of frustration with congressional inac- tion, he changed course and created DACA. At the time, Obama frankly admitted that this was a substitute for legislation—a measure taken in “the absence of any immigration action from Congress.” There is little question that the president can prioritize immigra- tion enforcement in a variety of ways, say, to focus on deporting con- victed felons rather than Dreamers. other views This is the manner in which the law was generally enforced before DACA, and in which it could still be enforced without DACA. At some point, however, the sys- tematic organization of this discre- tion into a new legal status, bringing a series of public benefi ts, becomes the equivalent of legislating. And the courts might focus particular scruti- ny on forms of executive action that Congress could have legislated but didn’t. Given the more conservative composition of the Supreme Court, it is likely that DACA would have been struck down. Whatever the merits of the constitutional case on DACA, the Dreamers should now be protected by law. For the last few decades, Congress has pliantly surrendered a number of roles—particularly on social policy and national securi- ty—to the courts and the president. A shortage of institutional ambition is a problem that America’s founders did not even contemplate. This is an opportunity for Congress to reclaim its proper constitutional role. This is also a debate, given that few Republicans actually want to deport the Dreamers, and most Democrats seem to prioritize their welfare, on which compromise is particularly ripe. The obvious deal: stronger border enforcement (though not the surpassingly silly wall) for a new version of DACA. If Republicans can’t accept such a deal, they have no heart and a severely limited political future in an increasingly diverse country. If Democrats can’t accept such a deal, their rhetoric on the Dreamers is empty. On this issue, compromise is now the evidence of compassion. (Washington Group) Post Writers (Creator Syndicate) letters To the Editor: The Keizer Fire Dis- trict has provided a com- munity memorial for the 9/11/2001 attack for the last sixteen years. It is a very respect- ful and sober event to remember those who died and the emergency responders who served. Through the fi re district, the city of Keizer dem- onstrates its community patriotism for America and our citizens. The Keizer Fire District hosts the event, providing a fl ag ceremony, bag The Dreamers deserve compassion twitter.com/keizertimes Don’t like DACA? Let Congress fi x it By GENE H. McINTYRE Humanitarians are people who are concerned about, and seek to, protect their fellow human beings. They are also found to be kind and thoughtful about the welfare of most living creatures. They are those Americans among us who view Deferred Action for Child- hood Arrivals (DACA) from an emotional position, see- ing it as a humane way to treat those who en- tered the U.S. through no choice of their own. DACA is an Ameri- can immigration policy that allows certain un- documented immi- grants who entered the U.S. before their 16th birthday and before June, 2007, to receive a re- newable two-year work permit and exemption from deportation. It does confer non-immigrant status but not a path to citizenship. Meanwhile, we Americans hard- ly got to direct our attention to the divisive expressions of racism and hate at Charlottesville when two weeks later we’ve got DACA. How- ever, while Charlottesville had only one side wrong, as much as evil is never right, DACA, it’s argued, has two legitimates, that is, the humane angle and the law and order angle. In the fi rst instance, with DACA, there’s a case to be made that for- mer President Barack Obama used DACA as an executive order in 2012 for political gain and has used his legal jargon knowledge to de- fend it. By Obama’s own standards, DACA does not stand the test of le- gal scrutiny. The U.S. Constitution plainly gives the role of lawmaker to Congress while the executive branch enforces the law. DACA defers deportation and provides work permits, Social Se- curity cards, and a driver’s license to over one million illegal immigrants who arrived as minors while, from the beginning, has been controver- sial due to its dubious legal origins; therein lies the rub with DACA. Those protest- ing its rescind want us to believe this is a simple question of the heart, of kindness, of just another chapter in the American immigration story. Yet, at it core, DACA is a ques- tion of legality, that is this: Is it legal for a president to cre- ate legislative authority out of thin air, deciding what preferences to enforce? All presidents try end runs and this was Obama’s end run. How- ever, it’s an extreme action by the executive branch that underscores the broken state of our immigra- tion system. The 11 million immi- grants living illegally here is due in part at least to a system that requires long wait times, imposes ancient and possibly irrelevant quotas and often gets those, trying to negotiate it, into a morass of subjective deci- sion making. Those who want to crawl out from under the moun- tain of emotions now being un- leashed throughout our land should recognize that the current system needs to be remedied and stand down to redirect their efforts to the U.S. Congress. The question guest column of immigration, especially when it involves children, is always packed with emotion. Yet, intense emotion should not overrule the law itself. In keeping with his reputation for self-serving ventures that are profi t motivated, President Trump just may be onto something worthy of consideration. He is consistently guilty of what’s judged hypocritical by his own executive orders; nev- ertheless, in this case, sending the matter of DACA to the U.S. Con- gress may be the only way the 11 million undocumented immigrants will ever come to a place where lasting peace-of-mind and law- providing safety can be realized by them. Personal satisfactions may be de- rived from marching in America’s streets and byways while calling out and carrying signs convey- ing messages about what’s wanted. In our country today, unfortu- nately, the way to get a law on the books is what U.S, corporations and America’s wealthy do: they hire lobbyists and send them to D.C. with bags of money. (Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.) Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com