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NBC News Reporter Calls Out Bill Barr For Praising Book On Due Process In College Rape Cases

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An NBC News reporter called out Attorney General Bill Barr on Thursday after his endorsement surfaced of a book that delves into “the attack on due process” with regard to people accused of sexual assault on college campuses.

Barr endorsed a book published in 2017 titled “Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack On Due Process At America’s Universities.” It was co-authored by K.C. Johnson and Stuart Taylor Jr., who previously helped expose the 2006 Duke lacrosse scandal, when three college players were falsely accused of rape.

The article, written by Heidi Przybyla, noted that “Barr praised [a] 2017 book that claims colleges unfairly went after male student accused of sexual assault.”

“Barr’s blurb has also raised concerns among some Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said it should have been raised during his confirmation hearings last January,” the NBC article reads.

The blurb, written before Barr assumed his position in Trump’s administration in 2019, noted that “male students accused of sexual misconduct are found guilty, and their lives destroyed,” adding that universities sometimes operate “without any semblance of due process.”

In this masterful account, Johnson and Taylor examine in detail how President Obama’s Education Department — promulgating regulations beyond its statutory authority, invoking erroneous data, and fanning the false narrative of a ‘rape culture’ on college campuses — has created a regime of kangaroo justice. Male students accused of sexual misconduct are found guilty, and their lives destroyed, by campus panels operating without any semblance of due process and all too frequently on the basis of grossly inadequate information. Your blood will boil as the authors meticulously examine scores of cases where, in the name of political correctness, male students are sacrificed to the mob, with academic leaders happily serving as the hangmen.

Barr’s comments are backed up by the two authors’ previous book regarding the false allegations against three Duke collegiate athletes.

Przybyla suggested Barr’s endorsement of the book means he could attempt to “rescue” people accused of sexual misconduct. It also stated that the Trump administration has “come under scrutiny for expressing skepticism about whether females alleging sexual assault should be believed.”

“In light of Trump’s recent tweet about the Justice Department and Kavanaugh, it’s unclear Barr has the power to do anything to ‘rescue’ Kavanaugh or any male student accused of sexual misconduct,” Przybyla wrote.

The article includes quotes from a number of people wondering why Barr wasn’t questioned on his endorsement during confirmation hearings.

Emily Martin, who serves as vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center, called Barr’s comments “incredibly disturbing.”

The blurb “really discounts the experiences of survivors and the challenges they face,” she told NBC News.

Real story:

Barr praised a book about male students being denied due process in false claims of sexual assault.

The book, which I have actually read, does not bemoan punishment for rapists, as this article implies. https://t.co/wBm7Uv52Hb

— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) September 19, 2019

The book “uses hard facts to set the record straight,” Amazon’s description reads.

“It explores, among other things, about two dozen of the many cases since 2010 in which innocent or probably innocent students have been branded as sex criminals and expelled or otherwise punished by their colleges.”

NBC News, Przybyla and Barr’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.