Monthly Archives: January 2019

USC REINSTATES Armaan Premjee on the Heels of Court of Appeal Defeat

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USC REINSTATES Armaan Premjee on the Heels of Court of Appeal Defeat

USC has retracted its decision to expel Armaan Premjee following a case hearing with the Los Angeles County Superior Court on Dec. 18. According to court documents, Premjee filed a petition for a writ of mandamus. This would appeal for a reevaluation of USC’s “biased” Title IX investigation into the sexual assault charges made against him after an incident involving another student in April 2017. But due to recent California court rulings requiring new investigative procedures, Judge Elizabeth White granted USC’s request to halt legal proceedings on Premjee’s appeal at the hearing. The University decided to reinstate Premjee and reopen the investigation of the case to ensure fair and lawful adjudication under new regulations.

Those “recent California court rulings” referred to are almost certainly the Court of Appeals ruling against USC in another case a mere seven days prior in which the Court reversed the Superior Court’s decision, granted John Doe’s writ of administrative mandate and – as in the other Doe v. USC case – awarded attorney’s costs.

titleixforall  By J. Taylor dailytrojan By E. Toh

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CHANGES to Universities’ Sexual Assault Tribunals May Be Here to Stay

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CHANGES to Universities’ Sexual Assault Tribunals May Be Here to Stay

On November 29, the 60-day public comment period opened for Title IX regulations proposed by U.S. Depart. of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Three features distinguish DeVos’s proposed regulations from the Title IX initiatives of her Obama-era predecessors. 1st. The proposed rule would redefine the relationship between the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the nation’s universities, in ways that give schools more flexibility to implement Title IX. The regulations would adopt the U.S. Supreme Court’s definition of sexual harassment found in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education. 2nd. The proposed regulations would no longer require schools to adjudicate some off-campus claims. However, the published proposal notes that courts have deemed fraternities as covered under Title IX, suggesting that universities would need to adjudicate incidents that occur even at off-campus fraternities. 3rd. The proposed regulations would reduce the number of employees whose knowledge of a sexual misconduct allegation would require the university to initiate an investigation.

In theory, these are substantial changes—in practice, however, they are likely to have scant effect.  If the definitional items in the proposed rules will not likely change much in institutions’ decisions about whether to adjudicate sexual assault allegations, the proposed rule would dramatically alter how colleges adjudicate.

DeVos opting for new Title IX regulation rather than TIX guidance has two major advantages. First, in recent years, progressive activists and Democratic legislators have championed an approach to Title IX that encourages more reporting of campus sexual assault allegations at the expense of fairer investigative and adjudicative procedures. It seems certain that the next Democratic administration will hope to restore Obama-era Title IX principles. A Title IX guidance document issued by DeVos would lack lasting force; however Title IX regulations, will be more difficult to overturn. Second, and perhaps more important, Title IX regulations likely would require adherence, albeit very reluctantly, from universities.

theregreview  By KC Johnson

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LAWSUIT: Penn State Kicks Acc’d Male Out. Male Denied a TitleIX Testimonial Hearing.

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LAWSUIT: Penn State Kicks Acc’d Male Out. Male Denied a TitleIX Testimonial Hearing.

Without holding a TitleIX testimonial hearing, Penn State University suspended a male student after a female accused him of sexual assault…Penn State further altered its policy so that neither the accused student nor the accuser appears at a hearing, which precludes either party from confronting and cross-examining witnesses. Instead, cases are assigned to an investigator who evaluates the claims, interviews the accused and accuser, and then prepares a report for a committee. The ‘committee’ (sounds Gestapo right?- SOS words) decides if the allegations are founded or unfounded. The committee gives each party the opportunity to respond to findings in the report. John Doe’s attorney, Andrew Shubin, contends that is not sufficient to protect the accused student’s rights.  “These are usually ‘he said, she said’ cases where credibility is incredibly important,” Shubin said. “The only way to test credibility in the legal system is cross-examination.” Shubin noted the new policy impacts only sexual abuse investigations. Students accused of any other type of offense are still provided a hearing at which they can confront their accuser. “The stakes are arguably much higher when it comes to sexual misconduct, yet the rights given in sexual misconducts case is far less,” Shubin said. The lawsuit asks a judge to declare his client’s right to due process was violated and award him monetary damages. It also seeks an order directing the university to vacate its finding that the allegation was founded, remove the disciplinary action from his file and to reinstate him.

citizensvoice By Terrie Morgan-Besecker

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SETTLEMENT. University of Cincinnati Pays Falsely Accused Male $47K After Suspending Him Based On No Evidence, Just an Accusation

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SETTLEMENT. University of Cincinnati Pays Falsely Accused Male $47K After Suspending Him Based On No Evidence, Just an Accusation

A landmark due process case that led to an appeals court ruling that students need to be able to cross-examine their accusers and witnesses against them has come to an end, with the University of Cincinnati (UC) and the accused student reaching a settlement. This appears to be the first time UC has ever settled with an accused student. The case arises from an incident involving John Doe and Jane Roe, that occurred on September 6, 2015. The two UC students met on the dating app Tinder and sent messages back-and-forth before meeting in person. After the two had sex, they continued to spend time together in John’s room. Jane told him she didn’t want their encounter to be a “one-night stand.” John, however, did not call her again and couldn’t contact her through Tinder anymore. A month later, Jane accused John of sexual assault. When John was interviewed about the incident, he said everything was consensual. Interview notes for him contain editorial comments from the interviewer. Such comments did not appear in any notes about Jane’s interviews. Jane didn’t attend the campus hearing regarding her claims against John.  John said in his lawsuit that if he had been able to question Jane, he would have been able to pick out inconsistencies in her statements and show that she received generous accommodations from the school — changes to homework deadlines, grades, class schedules, test schedules, and even receiving job opportunities — which created an incentive for her to claim she was a victim.  Without being able to question any of the allegations against him, John was found “responsible” by UC and suspended. He appealed and lost, so he sued the school. What makes this case so important is that it reached the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which created a precedent-setting ruling stating that cross-examination is important, especially when the case boils down to a he said/she said where credibility is at stake. The ruling has been cited multiple times since. Josh Engel, one of John’s attorneys said,  “We are glad the case has been resolved so my client can get his degree and move on with his career.”

dailywire  By Ashe Schow

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USA TODAY Allows False Sex Assault Statistic To Go Unchallenged. Also-Males Should Avoid Biased XavierU

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USA TODAY Allows False Sex Assault Statistic To Go Unchallenged. Also-Males Should Avoid Biased XavierU

No matter how many times the claim that an exorbitant number of college women will be sexually assaulted during their time as an undergraduate is debunked, it still gets presented as if it were a fact of life. In August 2018, USA Today attempted to explain the issue of campus sexual assault in a series of videos, but right off the bat, the media outlet is making a bad faith argument. USA Today teased the series by comparing rates of breast cancer to false and misleading statistics about campus sexual assault.  USA Today presented Xavier University Title IX officer Kate Lawson, who brought up the so-misleading-it-should-be-called-fake statistic in the first part of the series. “About 1-in-4 to 1-in-5 women will experience rape or attempted rape during college,” Lawson says. This is flat out false. Even the studies where she gets the scary “1-in-4” or “1-in-5” numbers don’t say this. In those incredibly misleading studies, the high numbers are achieved by claiming that many women will be sexually assaulted (which includes rape but does not necessarily mean rape) or experience attempted sexual assault (which, again, includes attempted rape but does not mean attempted rape). Yet here is an Xavier administrator vastly inflating the issue. It seems to be a theme at that university, as the school’s president, Father Michael Graham, stated that campus sexual assault is “an epidemic” that is “pervasive” and “in the culture,” as if it is a fact. All notions of this alleged epidemic come from those unreliable and faulty statistics.

dailywire.com By Ashe Schow

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HOW DOES It Feel To Be Wrongfully Accused?

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HOW DOES It Feel To Be Wrongfully Accused?

There was only one career path that sparked any enthusiasm in me during my school years. I was destined to become a lawyer. At 17, my law degree commenced. Immediately, I found myself endowed with the principles that had garnered my interest. Lecture after lecture, further reinforced the notion that truth and justice were inextricably linked, and that the innocent were being protected. Seldom had I felt happier and more intellectually nourished than when I departed from a classroom. Crucially, the lectures, had neglected to inform me of one thing. That in six months time I would find myself being bundled into the back of a police car, knees driven into my body and tears streaming down my face. My crime, daring to be the last one at the scene of a vicious assault.

Naturally, the police, given the evidence they had, (i) myself being the one to call them in the first place, (ii) the one to care for the victim, (iii) the only one that had not yet scarpered, decided that the appropriate course of action was to have me detained and then later charged. Despite all of this, I retained faith in our justice system and a belief that all was not lost…But then faculty turned their back on me. Classmates no longer spoke to me. Why? Because I had chosen to speak openly about my innocence. God forbid the hot air spouted in lectures was forced to make its way back down to earth. God forbid that the buzzwords such as “truth”, “justice”, “dignity” and “presumption of innocence” scribed into every textbook needed to actually prise themselves from the paper and apply themselves to a real-life scenario.

Welcome to the disorientation that reflects the reality of being wrongfully accused. Imagine waking up one morning to the realization that you have a trial in one hours’ time, for a crime that you did not commit. During the trial, a jury will listen to the narrative of the prosecution, that implies your guilt. The defence, in turn, will proclaim your innocence. When all parties have been heard, it will be solely up to the jury to decide your fate. As the trial commences, you find yourself looking over to your friends for support. Then, it dawns on you. Your friends are nowhere to be seen. Luckily, your family and those who have stood by you are present. They attempt to convey strength, faith and optimism. But, you see behind this façade. Deep down, they are broken. For, their life, as well as yours, has been put on hold. You all face the prospect of a life that may never return to how it was. Ultimately, it boils down to the jury. You glance over to them in the hope that it is a fellow human being that they have in their sights. Inside, you scream, “I’m innocent!” But, then you realize, it is not a fellow human being that they have in their sights at all. They want someone to pay for these crimes and you’re the prime candidate. If you’re lucky (and I mean extremely lucky), you might just hear the words, “not guilty, you are free to leave”. If indeed, you find yourself in the “lucky” category, will your rightful status as an innocent human being be returned to you? No. The truth is, your innocence no longer belongs to you. The second that you are wrongfully accused of a crime, your innocence is taken from you, along with your humanity. 

As you push through the doors of the courthouse, you find yourself greeted with the murmurings of “suspect walks free”, implying that you have somehow managed to elude a deserved punishment. Your chosen career path is now nothing but a distant memory, a fallacy. Much like your ‘presumption of innocence’.  The reality is that the truth, innocence and justice do not matter. Sadly, we live in a society where it is virtually impossible to be successful in any large-scale institution without possessing an astute ability to dehumanise people. We can be extremely compassionate in some aspects of our lives while being simultaneously wicked, cruel and neglectful in others. Without humanity, there can never be a functioning justice system. 

medium.com By Liam Baxter

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