Accusation alone should not be enough to ruin anyone. Accusation alone should not be allowed to destroy someone, or take someone's job, or college/university opportunity,or even Olympic prospects.

That is your opinion. You do not have the power to impose it on other people.

So you advocate guilty until proven innocent... That's one hell of a fundamental shift for our society. How would you like to be accused of something by someone tomorrow and have to prove you're innocent, instead of having them prove you are guilty? How would you like to be punished up front as a guilty party based on accusation alone? Guilty until proven innocent - That is your opinion. I hope and pray you never have the power to impose it on other people.

I advocate the right of people to make their own decisions without having to submit them for other people's approval. In cases of sexual assault or harassment in a work or educational setting there is usually a need to take some immediate action to balance the rights of both parties. It may be necessary to take steps to keep them from coming into contact with each other. Such steps are likely to impose some burden and disruption on one of the parties. If I were and administrator, I would be inclined to lean toward placing that burden on the accused party.

It is not a fundamental shift in our society. Outside of the criminal courts there has never been a broad acceptance of innocent until proven guilty in actual public practice,

Because as we well know, the court of public opinion can and has been both wrong and cruel. The dismissals from jobs, character assassinations of those outside the "norm", even lynchings are all examples of things that had full support of the court of public opinion.

Courts of law can also be wrong.

Courts of law have carefully designed processes to ensure fairness. Thoroughly trained lawyers and judges. Painstaking procedures for collecting and presenting the relevant evidence. Methods for selecting an impartial jury. An appeals process.

Your average Joe Blow has none of those. All he has is an opinion--which may be ill-informed, biased, etc. And if even the courts, with their sophisticated legal processes, are prone to mistakes, how much more so is Joe Blow?

People said Joe Blow should not be judge, jury, and executioner during the Hollywood blacklists. Nor during the Salem witch hunts. But apparently when it comes to rape, Joe Blow is so expert that he can be trusted to a) know when the legal system has fallen short and b) mete out appropriate extralegal punishment.