In 2015, student-athlete Grant Neal was expelled by Colorado State University Pueblo for raping a fellow student. There was just one problem: the alleged victim repeatedly said, “I’m fine and I wasn’t raped.”

“One day I woke up and I had all my dreams in front of me,” Neal told Reason, “[but that was] yanked away from me for no justifiable reason.”

The hundreds of horror stories like Neal’s are what prompted the Donald Trump administration to institute a series of reforms in 2020, intended to protect due process rights for accused students in campus sexual assault proceedings while ensuring victims were able to pursue justice. But the Joe Biden administration has just announced plans to roll back many of these protections — prompting widespread concern over due process rights and whether mob justice might make a comeback on campus.

On 19 April, the Department of Education unveiled significant changes to the existing rules which govern these proceedings, formally taking effect at the beginning of August. These changes include removing the right of accused students to a live hearing where they can have a representative cross-examine their accuser, as well as allowing colleges to return to a “single investigator” model, where one individual can investigate the case and render a conclusion. In other words: be prosecutor, judge, and jury all at once.