Washington Examiner ~ By Kenneth L. Marcus (March 17, 2021 – Washington Examiner) ~ In The Trial of the Chicago 7, Aaron Sorkin’s award-winning 2020 legal drama, activist Abbie Hoffman urges lawyer William Kunstler to recognize that “this is a political trial that was already decided for us. Ignoring that reality is just weird to me.” Kunstler, who in real life was known as a master of political lawyering, disagrees with his Yippie client. Kunstler insists, “There are civil trials, and there are criminal trials. There’s no such thing as a political trial.” Hoffman smirks knowingly. The rest of the movie unfolds as a vindication of Hoffman’s view. The show trial of the Chicago Seven for inciting a riot was nothing if not political, and their conviction was nothing if not preordained. You could argue that our own era likewise proceeds as a vindication of Hoffman’s cynicism. For those who dissent from prevailing values, the 2020s present a series of political trials whose outcome often seems predetermined. This can be seen in the parade of famous people who have been canceled, without due process or appeal, from Homer and Shakespeare to Dianne Feinstein and J.K. Rowling. Technology raises the stakes, as nonconformists are shuttered from Facebook and Twitter. Amazon likewise vanishes nonconforming books and films, especially if they challenge social orthodoxies. On the national stage, this trend in political trials is reflected in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to stack a 9/11-style Capitol riot commission with a 7-4 partisan tilt among the commissioners, as well as provisions on subpoena power and investigative scope that would undermine the prospects of a widely respected, objective tribunal. This may suit the political demands of Pelosi’s caucus, but the commission’s predictable dissent into Hoffman-esque political theater would deny the country not only an honest reckoning, but also a sober-eyed review of systemic breakdowns that the Capitol riot revealed in law enforcement, anti-terrorism programs, and civic order. Such politically driven show trials follow a strategy perfected on our college campuses. For years, Office for Civil Rights-approved Title IX procedures stripped collegiate defendants of due process protections, expelling them for alleged improprieties that they were unable to challenge in live hearings with direct examination. Sexual violence is a serious problem, but no survivor benefits when innocent students are wrongly punished, just as no innocent person benefits from the failure to prosecute provable sexual assault. President Biden has long threatened to reverse Title IX reforms that ensured all parties basic fairness. Earlier this month, he ordered his new secretary of education, Miguel Cordona, to begin this process. This might be shrewd politics, but it is not good policy. Higher education has not limited such injustices to the maladministration of Title IX. Smith College, for example, has smeared employees who were falsely charged with racial profiling. The college’s president rushed to the defense of a student who claimed mistreatment when a janitor and a campus police officer asked why she was eating lunch in a dorm lounge. President Kathleen McCartney apologized profusely for the supposed profiling and placed the janitor on leave. It took an outside law firm’s independent investigation to refute the charges. Investigators found that the student had eaten in a dorm that was closed for the summer. The janitor had been told to call security if he saw unauthorized people in that space. But Smith did not publicly apologize to the workers whose lives it had upended. Students understand that college campuses have become increasingly intolerant of dissenting views, and they censor themselves accordingly. Last month, Speech First, a civil liberties group, sued the University of Central Florida over policies that ban certain conversations about race. These policies establish a bias response team, which includes a police officer, to investigate “bias-related incidents,” regardless of whether the incidents are illegal or even unintentional. The complaint says that such bias incidents have included writing about “safe spaces,” tweeting “#BlackLivesMatter,” and chalking “Build the Wall” on a sidewalk. Students now keep their views to themselves for fear of being summoned before university officials for counseling, training, or reeducation. Speech First describes one client, typical of many around the country, who no longer expresses his support for Israel and opposition to anti-Semitism for fear that this will trigger a bias complaint. While it may be “weird,” as The Trial of the Chicago 7’s Abbie Hoffman put it, to ignore the reality of today’s political trials, it is not always futile to resist. Last month, a Stanford University faculty effort to smear the Hoover Institution and a handful of its prominent, iconoclastic scholars backfired. Hoover’s new director, Condoleezza Rice, prevailed in a faculty senate debate that yielded a resolution reportedly expressing confidence in Rice’s leadership and her commitment to better integrate Hoover into Stanford. In this way, reasoned debate sometimes turns out to be decisive. While it is important to be vigilant about such matters as sexual harassment, racial bias, civic order, and academic standards, it is no less critical to be scrupulous about due process and basic fairness. When these matters are politicized, as they too often are, the solution can often be found in public scrutiny, open debate, and vigorous advocacy. Kenneth L. Marcus is the founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. He previously served as the assistant U.S. secretary of education for civil rights from 2018 to 2020.