BAD For Presumption of Innocence: Court Rules It’s OK to Suspend Student Accused While He Waits For Hearing
It was acceptable for Michigan State University to suspend a student while it waited to hold a live hearing on whether he sexually assaulted a fellow student, a federal court ruled last month. The ruling forms another piece of the puzzle that federal courts are putting together as a road map for how universities must handle sexual assault accusations on their campuses. Previously, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that when students are accused of sexual assault and the credibility of the accuser could affect the decision — a factor in most cases — the accused student must have a live hearing at which both sides have the opportunity to directly examine each other.
In the ruling issued in late April, the federal Western District Court of Michigan further clarified how universities should act while while the disciplinary process was in process. It said it was OK for the school to have temporarily suspended the student. The federal courts haven’t yet crossed the barrier of overturning interim suspensions, said KC Johnson, a professor at Brooklyn College and the co-author of “The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities.” The lawsuit itself also shows a “a relatively recent pattern of accused students seeking injunctions as their disciplinary process was ongoing,” KC Johnson said. “While these students often have lost in court, the litigation itself has led the school to create fairer procedures for their case.”
In this case, the suit was filed by an MSU medical student in his third year. He is identified only as John Doe in court records. According to the suit, Doe attended a university-sponsored event in 2016 with a group that included two female students who filed the complaint. The medical school then suspended the male student. There was a hearing over whether the suspension should be continued. It was. In March 2019, MSU said the male student could request a formal hearing. He has, and then sued asking to be reinstated until the hearing so he could take exams and continue on his academic path. The court ruled against him. “If Plaintiff’s position were accepted, there could be no interim suspensions at universities,” Judge Paul Maloney wrote. “Instead, a university would be compelled to throw together a formal disciplinary hearing at a moment’s notice, because it would have no other option other than to allow a student to cross-examine their accusers before taking even temporary action against him or her. Nothing in the law supports such an unbalanced view of procedural due process in the university setting.”
freep.com-David Jesse
