National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV)

NCADV has advocated positions on legislation, court cases, and proposed government regulations that, if enacted, could result in people who are accused of domestic violence or sexual assault receiving fewer due process protections than defendants accused of other crimes, and their accusers receiving “absolute immunity” from consequences of mistaken or false accusations. ^{4 5}

History and Mission

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence was founded in 1978 by attendees at a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights hearing on what was then called “battered women.” ⁶

In 1987, NCADV launched the first nationwide domestic abuse hotline using a charitable donation from Johnson & Johnson Co. The next year, NCADV returned the funding to Johnson and Johnson because of the company’s investments in South Africa, which NCADV’s board considered incompatible with the organization’s opposition to South Africa’s apartheid system of racial segregation. ⁷

At the end of 2018, NCADV’s mission statement changed. It previously had been focused on the organization’s role as the “voice of victims and survivors:” ¹

NCADV is the voice of victims and survivors.  We are the catalyst for changing society to have zero tolerance for domestic violence.  We do this by affecting public policy, increasing understanding of the impact of domestic violence, and providing programs and education that drive that change.

At the beginning of 2019, its website noted a change to a new mission with a much stronger focus on left-wing social-justice issues: ²

Our mission is to lead, mobilize and raise our voices to support efforts that demand a change of conditions that lead to domestic violence such as patriarchy privilege, racism, sexism, and classism. We are dedicated to supporting survivors and holding offenders accountable and supporting advocates.

In 2022, NCADV and the National Domestic Violence Hotline merged, with the NCADV becoming a subsidiary of the NDVH and giving up its independent 501(c)(3) status. ⁸

Public Policy Advocacy

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence takes positions on and actively engages its members to advocate on legislation, regulation, litigation and other public policy matters that relate to domestic violence issues. In its focus on protecting victims, its positions have come into conflict with the Constitutional right of due process for people accused of domestic violence or sexual assault.

Domestic Violence and Second Amendment Rights

Along with the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, the Alliance for Gun Responsibility Foundation, and Prosecutors Against Gun Violence, NCADV operates the “Disarm Domestic Violence” project, which promotes laws that would make it illegal for people who have domestic violence restraining orders against them to possess a firearm. ⁹

In 2023, a panel of judges on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal law that banned people who are under a domestic violence restraining order from possessing guns violates their Second Amendment rights since it does not require them to be found guilty of any crime. ¹⁰  The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in June 2023 and will hear arguments in the case. ¹¹

Opposition to Due Process in Campus Sexual Assault Allegations

Beginning in the mid-2010s under informal guidance from the Obama Administration, many colleges and universities adopted policies for investigation of sexual assault allegations that would later be found to violate the constitutional rights of the accused. ¹² Many judges would rule that rules based on the Obama-era guidance had created an environment in which individuals accused of sexual assault often did not receive “basic procedural protections” such as the ability to examine evidence, ask questions of witnesses or have different staff members act as investigator, prosecutor, judge, and jury. ¹³

NCADV opposed 2020 regulations promulgated by the U.S. Department of Education under then-Secretary Betsy DeVos that laid out colleges and universities’ responsibilities to provide meaningful due process protections to the accused when investigating allegations of sexual assault on campus, calling it a “shameful rollback” of the Obama-era guidance. ^{14 5}

In 2022, the NCADV joined a letter supporting attempts by the Biden administration to reverse the Trump administration’s due process requirements. In the letter, the NCADV and its allies argued against the presumption of innocence for accused parties, saying, “We oppose the Department retaining the harmful rule from the previous administration that currently requires schools to presume that the respondent is not responsible for sex-based harassment (or other sex discrimination) until a determination is made.” ⁴

Absolute Immunity

NCADV has argued that accusers in college sexual assault cases should receive “absolute immunity” from being subject to lawsuits for defamation that is normally reserved for parties to a criminal or civil trial. In 2022, NCADV joined 14 other organizations in a brief to the Connecticut Supreme Court arguing that a Yale University student identified as “Jane Doe” who made a rape allegation against fellow student Saifullah Khan, who was acquitted on all charges by a criminal court, should receive that immunity. ¹⁵

In June 2023, the Connecticut Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Khan could continue in his defamation suit against the unnamed woman, as Yale’s proceedings had “lacked the basic procedural safeguards” necessary to protect Khan’s rights and justify the absolute immunity from defamation lawsuits normally enjoyed by parties in criminal or civil trials. ¹⁶ The ruling noted that while the Justices had deep sympathy for victims of sexual assault, “At the same time, however, we must recognize a competing public policy that those accused of crimes, especially as serious a crime as sexual assault, are entitled to fundamental fairness before being labeled a sexual predator.” ¹⁷