Miltenberg: “The Takedown of Title IX,” The New York Times

In the past year, Miltenberg’s cause has widened into a public debate about whether the effort to ensure women’s safety has come at the expense of men’s due-process rights. An already polemical fight sharpened when President Trump’s administration came into power and began to methodically dismantle Obama-era policies. … This spring, Miltenberg’s phone rang again. On the line was another mother. “You’re not going to take our case,” she said. “You’re for the other side.” Her daughter, a freshman at a college in upstate New York, said she had been raped during her first semester, after she was separated from friends at a Halloween party and a man she’d never met grabbed and forcibly kissed her. … When he met with the woman and her family in early June, he was shaken. “It was the first time I’ve ever sat with someone who’s a victim, at least in this type of setting,” he says. “I’m used to hearing the other side in detail and trying to come up with the parts that don’t add up, or where the story doesn’t make sense.” … It would be disingenuous, he said, not to acknowledge the concerns of the other side: That if the process is broken, it’s broken at least as much for victims as the accused. That correction can become overcorrection in either direction. The pendulum swings both ways. It shouldn’t, he said, “but I don’t know how to stop it.”

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