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Comment by strstr | Hacker News Reader

This reads like someone in his department targeted him with the conclusion in mind: termination. Someone wanted him fired. They tried every option available, and they eventually succeeded.

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And that’s why Obama’s threat to universities leading them to abolish normal evidentiary requirements did so much damage. When there is nothing like due process, you can use the arbitrary process to do anything to anyone. Rolling back Obama’s abuse and restoring some sanity to Title IX was one of the few good things to come out of the Trump administration.

Hm. It's not a courtroom. A private company may hire and fire, without a judge and jury.

Still, there's much that's public about it. Surely some rules are desirable.

Due process is important even in private organizations but a public university is not a private organization so, at least in that context, I think there is a Constitutional argument that due process and respect for other Constitutional rights is required.

Do we know which university it was? Specifically do we know that it was a public university? It’s abhorrent either way, but I’m curious about the identity of the guilty university.

In this case (although he doesn’t mention what university it was), it is a “private” university. But the removal of due process from Title IX procedures was due to the threat from Obama to withold federal grant money from schools that continued to insist on fairness. Universities can not survive without this funding, so the government is directly involved in this abuse.

It’s still morally wrong, and those of us whose taxes pay these corrupt administrators’ salaries and whose elected officials gave them a weapon in the form of Title IX have every right to be insensed.

Why should a decision about firing someone (a civil penalty) require criminal standard of evidence (reasonable doubt) instead of civil (preponderance)?

If anything, the Obama change made things more consistent. Civil hearings use preponderance, and criminal use a higher standard.

Due process does not mean criminal standards of evidence. It means due process and there are established standards for civil as well as criminal cases.

I'm aware. GP specifically talked about evidentiary standards, hence my response was specifically about evidentiary standards.

I said “abolish normal evidentiary requirements”.

You’re pretending that means “require criminal standard of evidence”.

See the problem?

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