With echoes of the notorious non-rape case at Duke, the reputation of Yale football star Patrick Witt was “irreparably damaged,” as one columnist put it, by a leaked report of an “informal” university rape investigation that took no account of the rights of the accused. Despite Yale’s procedures, the accused was not even heard. Yale did not apologize, or even try to find the leaker. What led to this egregious denial of due process on college campuses, and what can be done to ensure the protection of student rights?

The Manhattan Institute was pleased to welcome two of the leading defenders of free speech and due process at our nation’s colleges and universities. Harvey Silverglate, current chairman and co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), has been a civil liberties advocate since the 1960s and currently specializes in criminal defense and academic freedom/student rights cases. KC Johnson, professor of history at Brooklyn College, coauthored the book Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustice of the Duke Lacrosse Case and wrote five strong reports on the Witt case for Minding the Campus, the Manhattan Institute’s web magazine on higher education.

212-599-7000

communications@manhatan-institute.org