It’s not every day that any U.S. senator – much less 19 of them – denounce the presumption of innocence. Or describe hearings with cross-examination, hallmarks of both the criminal justice and the congressional oversight systems, as “wholly unnecessary to determine what happened in a particular incident.”

Those remarks came in a seven-page comment released from the senators in question, all of them Democrats, in response to new Title IX regulations proposed by the current administration, which already dramatically scale back procedural protections for accused students. Their ranks included respected moderates such as Amy Klobuchar and Jack Reed, as well as civil libertarians like Ron Wyden.

That many politicians are fair-weather friends of civil liberties is old news. But for students who face a campus adjudication, the consequences of this almost cavalier dismissal of basic fairness is troubling.