It’s a foregone conclusion at this point that former Vice President Joe Biden would be labeled some kind of sexual predator if he were a male college student today. Even without the sexual assault allegations from Tara Reade, Biden’s documented history of standing too close to women, sniffing their hair, and rubbing their shoulders (as they look uncomfortable) would be enough under his own campus rules to get him expelled or suspended.
Yet with Reade’s allegations that Biden pinned her to a wall, groped her, and digitally penetrated her, Biden has demanded a separate set of rules for himself than those he has advocated for college students over the past decade. Biden wants the presumption of evidence and to be believed when he said he didn’t sexually assault Reade. He also now claims to want Reade not to simply be believed, as he has demanded of all women, but for her to be heard and for her allegations to be rigorously investigated for their truthfulness.
At the same time, Biden is pledging to rescind new Education Department rules that would provide some of these and other basic due process rights for students accused of sexual assault. On Wednesday, Biden released a statement calling the new rules – which require accused students to be presented with the specific allegations against them and to have access to evidence 10 days before a live hearing that includes cross-examination to determine their responsibility – “wrong.”
“And, it will be put to a quick end in January 2021, because as president, I’ll be right where I always have been throughout my career — on the side of survivors, who deserve to have their voices heard, their claims taken seriously and investigated, and their rights upheld,” Biden said.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, the new rules, issued by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, require schools to inform students of the specific allegations against them, presume innocence for the accused, require a live hearing with cross-examination (and a transcript be kept of said hearing), as well as requiring the people who investigate and determine guilt to be different. Also, schools can no longer go against an accuser’s wishes by investigated something they don’t want investigated.
Biden doesn’t want college students to have any of those rights, apparently.
Erin Perrine, Principal Deputy Communications Director for President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, said in a statement that Biden wants to hold students and others to a different set of standards than himself.
“Before Tara Reade’s assault accusations, Biden was unwavering in a presumption of guilt for the accused including Brett Kavanaugh,” said Perrine, according to The Hill. “That presumption of guilt included the disastrous Title IX regulations under the Obama-Biden administration, making it more difficult on college campuses for the accused to receive a fair hearing and their due process rights. Does Joe still stand by his presumption of guilt for the accused – or has he set a new standard for himself in the face of his own sexual assault accusations from a former staffer?”
Biden purposefully, erroneously joined activists in claiming the new rules allow schools to ignore sexual assault and would hurt “survivors,” even though he has deemed them as such based solely on an allegation without evidence.
“It lets colleges off the hook for protecting students, by permitting them to choose to investigate only more extreme acts of violence and harassment and requiring them to investigate in a way that dissuades survivors from coming forward,” Biden said. “Survivors deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced. Today, Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump published a rule that flies in the face of that belief and guarantees that college campuses will be less safe for our nation’s young people.”
Biden does not appear to see the rank hypocrisy between the standard he wants for himself and for college students.