JUDGE APPROVES Jury Trial Against Johnson & Wales U. For TitleIX Kangaroo Court
“A reasonable juror could decide that it is not ‘fair’ to require a student who knows little or nothing to figure out what s/he does not know in order to ask productive questions.” With this finding and many more, a federal judge refused to dismiss an expelled student’s lawsuit against a Rhode Island university for allegedly running him through a Title IX kangaroo court.
One of the core issues in the lawsuit against Johnson & Wales University is the burden the administration put on “John Doe” to understand the finer details of its adjudication process, as if the student were a trained lawyer. It created confusion for John and benefited his accuser, who faced no such burdens. Not only did the administration fail to fully explain the process to him but it prevented him from questioning either his accuser or her boyfriend, who brought her sexual assault accusations to campus police.
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy allowed John’s claims on breaches of contract and the “covenant of good faith and fair dealing” to move forward to a jury trial. She excluded his Title IX and emotional distress claims. In an extensive footnote on “the meaning of ‘fair,’” she said “it appears” that the university “put a significant burden on Doe to ascertain the details of the process, rather than provide him with a detailed description.” Her ruling joins those against several other colleges, including New England’s Brandeis, Yale and Amherst, where judges “have shown scant deference to the university finding” against “seemingly innocent student arbitrarily found guilty,” Johnson wrote last month.
thecollegefix– A. Pease
