At this point, you’d think that Joe Biden would appreciate a little due process when it came to claims to sexual assault. Biden himself has backed a long way from his previous, Kavanaugh-era standard of “Believe All Women” with Tara Reade to a new “take my word for it, it never happened” standard, and expects everyone to fall in line.

Shouldn’t he appreciate, then, the work that Betsy DeVos has put into making sure due process applies to all Americans in similar circumstances?

The U.S. Education Department finalized campus sexual assault rules that bolster the rights of the accused, Secretary Betsy DeVos announced on Wednesday. The new policy also reduces legal liabilities for schools and colleges, and narrows the scope of cases schools will be required to investigate. …

DeVos’ policy adds new measures intended to make sure students accused of sexual misconduct are judged fairly in campus disciplinary hearings. Students on both sides must be given equal access to evidence gathered in the school’s investigation and be allowed to bring an adviser, which can be a lawyer, to the proceedings.

Chief among the changes is a policy requiring colleges to allow students on both sides of a case to question one another during live campus hearings. The questioning would be done through representatives to avoid direct confrontation, but opponents have said it’s a cruel policy that forces victims to relive the trauma of sexual violence.

The previous Obama-era rules placed heavy financial incentives on colleges and universities to set up systems that shifted the burden of proof from accuser to the accused. Barack Obama and Joe Biden both wanted to see results from Title IX complaints about harassment and assault for their own political benefit, putting that far above considerations of law and justice. Hundreds if not thousands of college students had their reputations ruined in kangaroo courts without any benefit of due process, or in many cases even an ability to present evidence on their own behalf or question witnesses. It’s a system more similar to the witch trials in Salem than traditional American jurisprudence, and it continues to generate all sorts of abuses and malicious conduct.

Given Biden’s present circumstances, you’d think he would have a renewed appreciation for the traditional model. Instead, Biden reacted to DeVos’ finalized rule by saying he’d bring back the prove-your-innocence-or-else standard that he clearly doesn’t want anyone to apply to him:

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that if he’s elected president, he will reverse a rule issued by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos aimed at bolstering protections for students who are accused of sexual assault on university campuses.

In a statement, Biden said the new rule was an effort by the Trump administration to “shame and silence” survivors of sexual assault.

“It’s wrong,” Biden said. “And, it will be put to a quick end in January 2021, because as president, I’ll be right where I always have been throughout my career — on the side of survivors, who deserve to have their voices heard, their claims taken seriously and investigated, and their rights upheld.”

Due process is only for Democrats, I guess. Breathtakingly hypocritical, but that’s par for the course for Biden — but not just him. The Democrats standing behind Biden in the Reade allegation insist that Biden’s denial is all that’s necessary to dispense with Reade’s allegations. That wouldn’t be sufficient even under Betsy DeVos’ new Title IX parameters; under the Obama/Biden standard, it would be tantamount to a guilty plea. Will those Democrats — like Elizabeth Warren, Gretchen Whitmer, Kamala Harris, and others — embrace DeVos’ move back to due process to reconcile their defense of Biden? Don’t hold your breath.

Last night, Tucker Carlson followed up on his previous segment about Reade’s allegation, reminding viewers that he remains highly skeptical of her veracity. (And for some good reasons, too.) However, Tucker uses that as a springboard to make the obvious point that, by Biden’s Title IX standard, he should be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. And maybe so should some of his defenders, for that matter.