The College Fix

Some critics of the Campus Accountability and Safety Act have said it doesn’t provide funding to schools to conduct “climate surveys” or train personnel in how to respond to sexual-assault allegations.

That’s nothing compared to the likely cost it will impose on schools from lawsuits by accused students who say they were denied due process under the bill’s provisions, the Washington Examiner‘s Ashe Schow said in a column Thursday.

Schow was responding to one of the bill sponsors, Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who tweeted an article supporting her bill by a Columbia University student who was part of Gillibrand’s Aug. 13 press conference on the bill.

Citing the disputed statistic that one in five women will be sexually assaulted in college, Hannah Zhang wrote on the progressive Roosevelt Institute’s blog that

This cost far outweighs a fine that constitutes one percent of a university’s massive total budget or funds set aside to hire staff. For instance, Stanford University’s operating budget of $4.8 billion is more than the national GDPs of Cape Verde and Bhutan combined.

Responding to critics who point to the missing funding mechanism in the bill and say it will take away money from academics, Zhang said 

campus sexual assault has already compromised the education of countless students. Stopping sexual assault helps campuses to focus on academics, rather than hindering them from doing so.

Talking about money misses the point. The goal of CASA isn’t to fine universities. It’s to incentivize compliance. By investing in the resources now, universities create a safer educational environment for current and prospective students.

The Examiner‘s Schow responds:

What Zhang misses is the fact that since CASA only focuses on accusers, the probability that colleges and universities will see more lawsuits from accused students will outweigh the cost of the bill and possibly even the penalty for noncompliance. Already there are more than 30 young men across the country suing their universities for what they claim was a denial of due process, and if CASA passes, putting more pressure on universities to convict, that number could increase dramatically.

Schow has collected answers to her questions on the Senate bill from a handful of cosponsors – Republicans Kelly Ayotte, Marco Rubio and Chuck Grassley – but said the only Democratic response so far came from Gillibrand’s spokesman, who offered “to discuss the bill, but wouldn’t answer the questions provided to him as other senators’ offices had done.”

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