Megyn Kelly: Obama ‘swung the pendulum too far’ in favor of college sexual assault victims
NBC host Megyn Kelly on Thursday attacked President Barack Obama’s administration for advancing the rights of college sexual assault victims.
On her Today Show program, Kelly reported that Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was moving forward with a proposal to protect the rights of the accused in college sexual assault cases.
Under the new rules, colleges would not be allowed to investigate sexual assaults that occurred in off-campus fraternity houses.
According to Kelly, the Obama administration had gone “too far” when it moved to protect the rights of sexual assault victims.
Kelly, who reportedly was the victim of sexual harassment at Fox News, said that she had been covering the topic “closely for years.”
“And I understand the arguments on the one side, that we were in a position back when I went to school, back in my day, where the pendulum was completely against the woman,” the NBC host remarked. “But I would submit that the Obama administration overcorrected the problem and swung the pendulum too far back against the accused, completely eroding their due process rights.”
Kelly pointed to an interview she had done on Fox News with a man who had allegedly been falsely accused of rape.
“His college campus experience was ruined,” Kelly opined. “How is that fair?”
“These guys are entitled to due process and the women are entitled to due process,” she added. “And you can’t swing the pendulum so far against the accused that it’s a slam dunk for the accusers because while most women, I believe, are telling the truth, there’s a fraction that are not. And the men accused by them, those accused by the liars need to be protected too.”
NBC contributor Jenna Bush Hager reminded Kelly that the Obama administration moved to shore up the rights of victims because the trend of campus sexual assaults was “far too prevalent.”
MSNBC host Craig Melvin warned Kelly, “We don’t want to create a system where you have women afraid to go to the authorities.”
“Rights are rights,” Kelly insisted. “And as empathetic as I am for any victim of sexual assault, I think most victims aren’t expecting the due process rights of the accused to be eliminated. They understand that [the accused] is entitled to a fair hearing of what they have alleged.”
“I have two sons and I have a daughter,” she revealed. “And I don’t want this kind of thing happening to any one of them.”
