The College Fix

UPDATE

Confirmed easily, praised by (and related to) Paul Ryan

As an increasing number of judges scrutinize the sexual-assault investigations of colleges for whether they provide basic fairness to accused students, those judges’ records and trips to the bench also come under scrutiny.

Last year an Obama appointee in New York federal court, Jesse Furman, threw out a case by a Columbia University student suspended for rape, ignoring his other claims and focusing exclusively on his gender-discrimination claim.

Furman’s ruling basically required Columbia to act like a cartoon villain against all men in order for the student’s case to proceed. He was strongly backed during the confirmation process by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, perhaps the loudest advocate for college investigations that treat accused students as guilty from the start. As a federal judge, Furman is untouchable.

On the opposite end, in a state criminal rather than federal civil context, Judge Aaron Persky is facing a recall led by a Stanford law professor for giving a six-month jail sentence (and various other sanctions) to Brock Turner, the ex-student convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in public.

Persky’s critics can’t point to anything legally deficient he has done – they just didn’t like how he used his lawful sentencing authority, based on guidelines that explicitly account for youth, prior record and intoxication.

MORE: Judge blasts UCSD for its kooky reading of evidence

Falling somewhere between those two is the federal judge who was just assigned the highest profile case against the government’s five-year campaign to strip due process from college sexual-assault proceedings.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, of the federal D.C. District Court, is overseeing a new lawsuit by a former University of Virginia law student who says the Department of Education’s 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter has no force of law.

It imposed a weak evidence standard – “preponderance” – that the adjudicator in the case, a retired judge, said was directly responsible for her finding that the student was responsible for rape.

A public defender and expert on sentencing

Judge Jackson emerged on President Barack Obama’s shortlist for the Supreme Court after the untimely passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, according to a Washington Post report. (This was before the president put forth Judge Merrick Garland as his nominee.)

What do we know about her? SCOTUSblog Publisher Tom Goldstein laid out Jackson’s interesting CV back in February, saying that “special circumstances” could make the trial judge Obama’s favored pick.

MORE: Father speaks out after college-athlete son cleared of rape

Goldstein said she could also be a compelling choice for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton:

She was confirmed by [sic] without any Republican opposition in the Senate not once, but twice. She was confirmed to her current position in 2013 by unanimous consent – that is, without any stated opposition. She was also previously confirmed unanimously to a seat on the U.S. Sentencing Commission (where she became vice chair).

She is a young – but not too young (forty-five) – black woman. Her credentials are impeccable. … She clerked on the Supreme Court (for Justice Stephen Breyer) and had two other clerkships as well. As a lawyer before joining the Sentencing Commission, she had various jobs, including as a public defender.

Her family is impressive. … Her brother was a police officer (in the unit that was the basis for the television show The Wire) and is now a law student, and she is related by marriage to Congressman (and Speaker of the House) Paul Ryan.

Ketanji Brown Jackson for #SCOTUS @POTUS Brilliant analysis https://t.co/sh1YjJ8n2Q #KBJ4Scotus #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/4VVw0Tg0wg

— Hank De Leo (@hankdeleo) March 12, 2016

A blog on sentencing law and policy absolutely loved Jackson’s appearance on the shortlist, noting that Speaker Ryan’s warm feelings for Jackson go beyond kinship – he gave her presentation before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Ryan emphasized “just how qualified she is” and said he would “serve as a character witness” for Jackson: “Now, our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, for her integrity, it is unequivocal.”

MORE: Lawyers revolt against attempt to redefine sexual assault 

This background and praise from the leading congressional architect of conservatism in 2016 may portend well for John Doe’s lawsuit against the Department of Education.

Having served as a federal public defender, Jackson is presumably experienced in how the system is stacked against defendants without the resources to contest their accusations. She surely knows racial minorities face an uphill battle.

The sentencing commission under her stewardship asked Congress to “take a close look at the effectiveness of mandatory minimum sentences and address inconsistencies in sentencing practices,” Legal Times noted when Jackson joined the trial bench.

These are basically the same conditions in campus kangaroo courts, which consider allegations that fall disproportionately on young men of color who don’t have the resources of a Brock Turner or a Jack Montague. They are immediately judged rapists, deprived of bedrock legal protections and subject to an absurdly low evidence standard.

Increasingly, to appease the gods of the Twitter mob and regardless of the facts at hand, they are expelled – the equivalent of a mandatory minimum sentence.

MORE: Six-figure settlement for student athlete falsely accused

Though John Doe’s largely procedural case against the feds seems like a slam dunk to me – a rape finding delivered by a weak evidence standard mandated in a lawless guidance document – Jackson may have other ideas.

Given the patronage of President Obama and presumptive nominee Clinton, Jackson may feel pressure to jump on the “It’s On Us” bandwagon – surely a litmus test for a Clinton nomination – and ignore the deluge of government-mandated due-process violations in campus proceedings.

She may be reluctant to question agency deference. She may believe that sexual-assault investigations that deprive an innocent young man of opportunities for the rest of his life are primarily “educational” in nature. God help us, she may be friends somehow with Sen. Gillibrand.

All that considered, I feel better about this case with Jackson at the helm.

CORRECTION: This post originally mixed up the order of the judge’s surname. She is named Ketanji Brown Jackson. It has been fixed.

MORE: Yale violated its rules to judge leading athlete a rapist

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IMAGE: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia