BOSTON COLLEGE: Male’s Title IX Lawsuit Goes To Discovery
The lawsuit brought by a Boston College student-athlete against the University entered into discovery in U.S. District Court earlier this month. The schedule postpones the certification of any legal questions to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court until after Judge Douglas P. Woodlock makes a summary judgment on the merits of the case over the summer. Each side will have until May 13 to complete discovery, which will include depositions of fact witnesses and requests for documents central to the investigation into the suspended student, in addition to interrogatories and requests for admission.
The plaintiff, “John Doe,” was suspended in June after Boston College found him responsible for a non-consensual sexual encounter with another student, “Jane Roe,” in November 2018. In August, Woodlock ordered BC to allow Doe to return to classes for the fall semester after finding that the investigative process violated his right to fundamental fairness. Key to Woodlock’s decision was Doe’s argument that he was not provided an opportunity to ask questions of Roe and other witnesses, or to write questions for a third party to ask, a process called “real-time cross-examination.”
Woodlock’s reasoning cited the August 2019 U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit decision Haidak v. University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which says that public universities must provide an opportunity for real-time cross-examination under the constitutional standard of due process.
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