But should Stanford really adopt constitutional standards for criminal proceedings if it's not holding a criminal inquiry? One of the important conclusions of

But should Stanford really adopt constitutional standards for criminal proceedings if it's not holding a criminal inquiry? One of the important conclusions of the "Me too" debacle was that victims cannot make their accusations in public - in fact, many tried, for many years - because they face a much higher cost of doing it than the aggressor. It's only when they are organized as a group that their individual accusations gain power leaning on one another, otherwise each accuser taken individually is taking a (major) image cost, up to removal from the field. The traditional criminal system was powerless to give victims justice before this, and deviants in ppsitions of power could victimize dozens or hundreds of people. So as long as participation in this anonymous process is entirely voluntary for the accused and the texts are treated as entirely made up until proven true, then they can be interpreted as a way of organizing a larger number of anonymous victims who don't know of one another, and a way for management to get an early warning of things they need to look into more closely. If a certain academic is accused by ten anonymous people of sexual harassment, it could be an organized smear campaign from a disgruntled student or peer. If, however, those accusations follow them across multiple departments and academic years, there might be more there than meets the eye.