A Note From Vic Bernson, YAF’s New Vice President & General Counsel

Hello Fellow Freedom Fighters! I’m thrilled to join the great YAF team and I look forward to many years of service alongside each of you in the trenches of the ongoing, epic fight for the future of our nation.  Please know I’m a happy warrior and I solemnly pledge always to have YAF’s back. But first a little commentary on a welcome legal development of great importance to all Americans – especially those of you laboring for justice on the battlefields of education. On May 6, 2020, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos formally unveiled new Title IX rules governing sexual-misconduct cases in schools.  No doubt many of you are aware that the previous rules, issued by the Obama Administration and championed by then-Vice President Joe Biden, eviscerated the concept of “due process” on our campuses.  Hundreds of young men from all over our country were forced to stand by helplessly as they were expelled and their reputations destroyed based on unfounded rumors and unsubstantiated hearsay.  In the endless pursuit of political correctness, hostile, dishonest school administrators lined up panels of biased, unethical adjudicators clearly predisposed to find guilt and impose harsh sanctions.

• Gone was the presumption of innocence.
• Gone was the right to see in advance and challenge all relevant evidence.
• Gone was the right to question accusers.

The farcical, railroading nature of these school tribunals was so awful that they might’ve made even Beria and Kaganovich smirk. Does all this sound like an exaggeration?   It’s not.  The son of one of my dearest, lifelong friends faced just this situation at a major southern university.  After being scooped up by campus police for fitting the description of an alleged assaulter, this young man was ostracized and treated like a monster for three long months … until one day the school jacobins were forced to admit his was a case of mistaken identity.  Oh, but so much damage had already been done!  And why?  We already have a criminal justice system designed to address sexual assaults.  The key difference between our traditional justice system and school kangaroo courts is the same concept I mentioned earlier: “due process.”  This concept is spelled out in our beloved Constitution. All of this goes to the very heart of why we call ourselves “conservatives.”  Because what are we trying to conserve?  Why our Constitution, of course! Allow me to close by restating what to most of us is already obvious: “due process” in America is and must remain sacrosanct and non-negotiable.  While the left is busy caterwauling and bemoaning its latest loss of power over the lives of those they deem enemies, the rest of us recognize that actual, honest-to-goodness justice now is far more likely under the new rules.  We also can’t help but chuckle at the amazing irony that under Biden’s own non-sensical sexual assault rules Biden himself would already stand convicted and dismissed from public life.  My friends, Joe Biden should join us in thanking Secretary DeVos for a job very well done.