President Donald Trump is only the latest of many – feminists, other women, and men – arguing that some kind of due process should apply before a person is fired, or suffers other kinds of losses, based upon allegations of misconduct. In some situations these arguments are clearly correct as a matter of constitutional law.

But even when the Constitution doesn’t require it, a strong argument can be made that those accused should be accorded at least some measure of procedural protection – sometimes called “fundamental fairness” or “due process light” – based upon the basic principles of due process which have been followed for hundreds of years both here and in other common law countries.

The accused should be given, at the very least, an opportunity, reasonable under the circumstances, to defend himself before being permanently deprived on something of value, although this does not preclude decision makers from taking interim actions against him to protect others before the matter can be decided.