UNIVERSITY of Michigan Spends Over $2 Million Defending Sex Polices That Deny Due Process Rights
As of Sept. 27, the University of Michigan spent $1.6 million defending against the Doe v. Baum lawsuit and has spent about $650,000 on the ongoing Doe v. University of Michigan lawsuit, MLive reported at the beginning of October. Both lawsuits allege the University’s policies violate the due process rights of those accused of sexual misconduct.
A report in 2017 found higher education institutions around the nation spend an average of $350,000 on sexual misconduct lawsuits. To explain the significantly higher cost of the Doe v. Baum lawsuit, University spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald pointed to the amount of legal work required in the “3-year-old, heavily litigated case involving complicated legal issues.” “The plaintiff filed an initial complaint, an amended complaint, and second amended complaint, the latter of which is 40 pages long and contains more than 200 paragraphs of allegations. Fitzgerald went on, there has been a total of 64 briefs in the trial court, with 38 filed by the plaintiff, resulting in a record that exceeds 5,000 pages. There have been five lengthy hearings and four status conferences in the trial court, as well as full briefing and oral arguments in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.” Fitzgerald explained, the University’s legal fees are covered by its insurer, Veritas Insurance Corporation, which the University owns.
According to Gordon, $1.6 million is an “incredible” sum of money to spend on a case not involving discovery of evidence. “I’m a four-person law firm, I do contingency fee work mostly.” “At one point they had 12 different attorneys working for them from three different law firms, two of them out-of-state … I’m a very small firm and they’re saying it’s me that caused this? That’s laughable.”
Gordon said she believes the University should address sexual misconduct by providing the option of a live hearing and cross-examination as it does all other cases of student misconduct. She disparaged the Start by Believing campaign, a program the University’s Division of Public Safety and Security has signed onto, that nationally works to change the way sexual misconduct is responded to.
“They think student-to-student sexual misconduct is not like other misconduct. Why is that, I don’t know,” Gordon said. “I guess it’s because they want to be politically correct, they like the ‘Start by Believing campaign,’ which is the antithesis of due process … But our whole system of justice is based upon the concept (of) innocent until proven guilty.”
