ASHE SCHOW: Claire McCaskill’s Crazy Scheme: Can colleges adjudicate gun crimes as they would campus sexual assault?

In a statement that is truly baffling and frightening, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., implied that colleges and universities can adjudicate gun crimes just as they adjudicate campus sexual assault.

Speaking on an Oct. 29 press call regarding national fraternity and sorority groups’ support of a bill that would put sexual assault crimes back in the hands of law enforcement, McCaskill implied that the groups were singling out sex assault.

“Keep in mind, they have only carved out this exception for sexual assault – not any of the other violent crimes,” McCaskill said, according to a transcription by the Huffington Post. “So a young woman could be robbed at gunpoint, decide she wanted to just try to get that person off campus and go to their university … but if she was raped, she would not be able to do that unless she went to the police.”

Slate quoted the senator as saying the woman robbed at gunpoint could “go to her university and they could take action under Title IX.”

Neither Slate nor HuffPo questioned the senator’s comments or explained them in any way.

Because what Sen. McCaskill appears to be suggesting is that colleges really are their own court system, adjudicating gun crimes the way they adjudicate sexual assault – and that the anti-gender discrimination law known as Title IX requires them to do so. Colleges and universities are required to adjudicate accusations of sexual assault and sexual harassment because of Title IX. The argument goes that these are gender-specific crimes and are therefore a form of gender discrimination.

That’s a stretch unto itself, as it implies that sexual preference is discrimination. It’s also problematic because schools are still required to adjudicate accusations of sexual assault when both parties involved are the same gender.

But even that is more plausible (the notion that sex crimes are a form of sex discrimination) than suggesting a robbery at gunpoint is a form of sex discrimination, even if the robber is a man and the victim is a woman. Even the Violence Against Women Act doesn’t include robbery in its list of crimes against women. . . .

The claims being made to sell the public on the need to create a kangaroo court system to provide separate justice for privileged college students are astounding.

Having ruined the regular criminal justice system, Democrats are now trying to set up a new, more protective, one for the enclaves they control.