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LAWSUIT: Expelled Male Sues St. Olaf College

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LAWSUIT: Expelled Male Sues St. Olaf College

A former student at St. Olaf College in Northfield is fighting both criminal charges and his expulsion from school for alleged sexual contact with an intoxicated classmate. The St. Olaf male college student had brought a woman he didn’t know well to his dorm room in November 2017 after drinking and playing “Truth or Dare” with the woman and three others. In his lawsuit the male said that they kissed and groped each other on his bed but stopped once she fell asleep. St. Olaf expelled the male after conducting its own investigation. The school concluded that the woman had consented to some kissing and touching but not to getting naked. The lawsuit recently filed, accuses St. Olaf of siding with the accuser for reasons unrelated to the facts of his case. It says the school has been stung by bad publicity when another alleged rapist went unpunished and was “overcompensating now” by refusing him due process. Further, it claims St. Olaf treated the male unfairly because of the Obama administration’s guidance for how schools should investigate sexual assault. The lawsuit cites a September 2017 letter from the Trump administration, which called the Obama administration’s Title IX guidelines unfair and encouraged colleges to do more to protect the rights of accused students.

twincities.com By Josh Verges

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BETSY DeVOS TALKS: “It’s Time We Balance The Scales of Justice in Our Schools”

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BETSY DeVOS TALKS: “It’s Time We Balance The Scales of Justice in Our Schools”

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post. Here are some highlights from her article.

Last week, the Education Department released for public comment a proposed regulation regarding Title IX implementation. The rule would require schools to address sexual misconduct by assisting and protecting victims of sexual misconduct while affording due-process protections to those accused… No student should have their education unfairly derailed. That’s why there must be no tolerance for sexual harassment or assault in America’s schools — And there should also be no tolerance for adjudicating these matters in a way that denies to any person access to the core principles that underpin our justice system, such as due process. 

I have heard consistently that we can and must do better. A fair process treats each party with dignity and ensures the integrity of final decisions. This is why unbiased decision-makers need to objectively consider the testimony of both parties and other available evidence before reaching conclusions about what happened and what to do about it. Our proposed rule would require schools to apply basic due-process protections for students, such as the presumption of innocence, the right to know of allegations against them, the right to examine and challenge the evidence and the right to an unbiased decision-maker. That includes prohibiting the “single investigator” model, in which determinations are made by the same person who has investigated the case — a situation akin to a prosecutor also serving as a judge…Colleges and universities would also need to hold a live hearing in which cross-examination could be conducted by the parties’ advisers, even if that means putting the parties in separate rooms.

Some may mischaracterize our proposals as tilting the scales of justice, but we believe they simply balance them. Our proposed framework supports survivors while safeguarding due process, helping make Title IX protections against sex discrimination a reality for all students. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how people can object to procedures premised on the foundational concept of due process, or how anybody could have confidence in a system that lacks such protections.

To read DeVos’ full opinion piece go here: washingtonpost

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BIG HUGE WIN for Male. CA Supreme Court Upholds Cross-Examination. Court Denies Claremont McKenna’s Request for Review.

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BIG HUGE WIN for Male. CA Supreme Court Upholds Cross-Examination. Court Denies Claremont McKenna’s Request for Review.

The California Supreme Court has ruled against the Los Angeles private college Claremont McKenna by upholding the unanimous female ruling by California Court of Appeals in favor of John Doe. On 8/8/18 the CA Court of Appeals found that Claremont McKenna College’s process was devoid of any opportunity to evaluate the credibility of the accuser who chose not to attend the TitleIX sexual misconduct hearing in person or remotely.  The Court of Appeals made it clear that in a “he said/she said” case, it is essential that the panel is able to directly assess the credibility of the accuser…This is a big solid legal win for cross-examination and college accused males. This means the 8/8/18 ruling by California Court of Appeal in favor of John Doe stands. This means that obnoxious Claremont McKenna College who fought against basic fairness for its own students lost.

And remember, a year ago California’s Governor Jerry Brown vetoed SB169, refusing to codify 2011 Obama era guidelines. In vetoing SB169 Governor Brown stated, ‘accused students must be treated fairly and with the presumption of innocence’ 

The gifts of Title IX fair justice and due process continue. This month the Education Department rolled out proposed changes to Title IX guidelines. And according to Forbes, Newsweek, and many more media outlets, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos gets it right. The Title IX guidelines will restore balance and fairness to all students. 

SOS is extremely grateful to John Doe and his family, Govenor Brown, and Betsy DeVos.  In this climate of mis-guided SJW bullies, it takes great courage and strong resolve to remain persistant in the fight to uphold due process rights for all. -Alice

 

 

 

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STANFORD CAUGHT With it’s Pants Down: TitleIX Procedures Point to Discrepancies Between Statements & Practices

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STANFORD CAUGHT With it’s Pants Down: TitleIX Procedures Point to Discrepancies Between Statements & Practices

As college sexual assault policies draw increased scrutiny amid ongoing federal changes, documents reviewed by The Daily suggest that Stanford has publicly misrepresented aspects of its own Title IX practices. Bob Ottilie ’77, a lawyer who has advised accused students in Title IX cases at Stanford showed The Daily correspondence with Title IX staff.  For Ottilie, the discrepancy between Stanford’s statements and practices is just one aspect of broader concerns about the rights of students accused in Stanford’s Title IX proceedings. Ottilie has criticized Stanford’s expectation that accused students initially respond to complaints without full details about the allegations against them, as well as the University’s practices around evidence admission. Ottilie also disputed University statements about how the Title IX Office redacts evidence. Documentation supported his account. He has also argued that the Title IX Office’s decisions in his clients’ cases show bias against male students. “[Stanford is] lying because they are ashamed of what they do.”

Email reviewed by The Daily showed that Title IX staff declined to interview the psychologist of a male client of Ottilie’s, who had filed a competing claim of sexual assault against a female accuser. Ottilie said the psychologist would have supported the male student’s claims and bolstered his defense. Explaining its decision in the email to Ottilie, the Title IX Office wrote that the conversation was not relevant because the student’s discussions with the psychologist were not contemporaneous to the alleged incident. “It was absolutely contemporaneous,” Ottilie disagreed, “because the young man was referred by the University for psychological assistance as a result of his emotional state [after breaking up with his accuser]. That all occurred literally within days of when the relationship ended.” Ottilie believes the Office’s decision to discount the source indicated gender bias, citing other cases at Stanford and beyond where conversations from long after an incident occurred were still deemed relevant to an investigation of a woman’s allegations. His client was unable to counter the decision: “The rules precluded my client from doing those interviews on his own,” Ottilie said.

Ottilie said one of his recent Stanford clients was moved out of campus housing for several months as an interim measure and only allowed to visit campus and attend class in the presence of a security guard. The student also had to notify Title IX of all non-class visits, he said, and rarely came to Stanford’s campus as a result of the constraints. “That’s a great big scarlet letter that says you are an accused rapist,” Ottilie said of the security guard… While the Title IX Office ultimately did not pursue a case against the client, Ottilie remarked:

“To this day Stanford has never done one thing for him to say they’re sorry.”

stanforddaily  by Hannah Knowles

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CYNTHIA GARRETT w FACE Supports New TIX Rules on NPR. “A Serious Serious Mental Trauma for People who are Falsely Accused.”

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CYNTHIA GARRETT w FACE Supports New TIX Rules on NPR. “A Serious Serious Mental Trauma for People who are Falsely Accused.”

NPR’s Lakshmi Singh speaks with Cynthia Garrett, the co-president of Families Advocating for Campus Equality, who supports recently proposed changes to Title IX rules.

SINGH: In proposing a change to Title IX that would allow a defendant, for example, to cross-examine his or her accuser, we know that concerns have often been raised that this could retraumatize victims of sexual assault. Are you concerned about that at all?

GARRETT: I personally have never advocated for an accused or an accuser to directly cross-examine each other. And that’s not what the regs provide for. They allow a student’s advocate to question the opposing party.

SINGH: Does that not, still, retraumatize victims of sexual assault?

GARRETT: Well, you’re assuming they’re victims before they’ve been questioned. And, as you’ve probably heard, courts say cross-examination is the greatest legal engine ever created for determining the truth….

Is it fair to expel somebody based on something that the accuser refuses to be questioned about? Is that fair, really?…there’s a whole lot of misinformation or disinformation about the repercussions of these findings. We get calls almost every day. We have students that have been through these processes found not responsible and, five years later, are still so traumatized, they can’t go back to school. So this is not a game. This is a serious, serious mental trauma for people who are falsely accused.npr.org

WashingtonPost: DeVos “It’s Time We Balance the Scales of Justice in our Schools”

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HOW ‘MeToo’ Student Communists @UTexas-Austin Got a Respected Professor to Commit Suicide

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HOW ‘MeToo’ Student Communists @UTexas-Austin Got a Respected Professor to Commit Suicide

The University of Texas-Austin pharmacology professor Richard A. Morrisett’s career, was destroyed by a single newspaper article. Before Morrisett killed himself, the 57-year-old tenured professor of pharmacology and toxicology was once a rising star. His research offered new insights into alcohol-related brain disorders and alcoholism – an arcane area of research among neuroscientists. But the Austin American-Statesman, wrote an article dredging up an ugly episode from Morrisett’s past – a domestic violence incident involving his girlfriend at the time. There were no serious injuries, and Morrisett took a plea deal: sentenced to four years of probation, ordered to receive counseling, take a class on avoiding family violence, and perform 100 hours of community service. “Morrisett had thought he was moving on with his life. He had accepted responsibility for his actions and, moreover, had put an apparently volatile and dysfunctional relationship behind him.”  Then MeToo happened, and The Statesman conspired with the campus mob to destroy his life. Overnight, Morrisett became Public Enemy No. 1. The Statesman dug up Morrisett’s plea a year and a half later, noting the university had not sanctioned him. The administration said it found “no relation” between the incident with his girlfriend and “how he acted on campus,” so he continued teaching. Personnel records, evaluations, and correspondence between Morrisett and UT officials, obtained through an open-records records, paint a portrait of how the taxpayer-funded university surrendered to the Revolutionary Student Front mob, “Our goal is to make him feel unsafe on campus.”  MeToo had gone from targeting “high-profile villains” to a private figure who was paying his debt to society, had no history of troubling reports on campus and received acclaim from his superiors, Paulin writes. The Statesman and other media outlets “enjoyed a symbiotic relationship” with the campus mob, covering every campus protest and egging them on: The university gave Morrisett an ultimatum. A month later he killed himself. The original autopsy said he “was last known alive at a disciplinary hearing regarding his employment due to a legal matter.” The student communists who threatened him crowed over his death. A tenured professor responded to Morrisett’s suicide, “I’m having an emotional reaction. He was a very close friend of mine, and I just want to make sure his memory is honored.”

americanthinker By David Paulin thecollegefix

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SETTLEMENT Reached in Lawsuit Against Clark University. Falsely Accused John Doe Was Victim of a Prejudicial ‘Female-Centric Environment’

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SETTLEMENT Reached in Lawsuit Against Clark University. Falsely Accused John Doe Was Victim of a Prejudicial ‘Female-Centric Environment’

In 2015 two young college students ‘John Doe &  Sue Smith’ became friendly and established an ongoing romantic relationship, resulting in a consenting encounter, which is supported by their text messages.  But ‘Sue’ became upset with ‘John’ for not spending enough time with her (SOS recommends guys date an emotionally independent gal.) Sue broke off their relationship, started dating another student, and then filed a complaint of rape against John three months after their first sexual encounter.  Clark University turned it’s back on John, but not Sue. Several hours before his hearing took place, the University hosted a screening of the propaganda film The Hunting Ground, and the person who would serve as the board chair participated in that program. Needless to say, John’s sham Title IX hearing found him responsible, and he was kicked out. In 2016 paperwork filed said a settlement had been reached and shows a federal mediator was involved in the process. The 29-page lawsuit sought money and asked for a judge to purge the decisions made by Clark University officials who determined the former student violated the student code of conduct.

This is why we need the new proposed Title IX rules under the guidance of Betsy DeVos’ Education Dept.

Settlement  Doe’s lawsuit against Clark University

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GREAT SUMMARY: Dept. of Education New Proposed Title IX Regulations

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GREAT SUMMARY: Dept. of Education New Proposed Title IX Regulations

The US Dept. of Education released its new proposed Title IX regulations addressing Title IX sexual harassment/assault. sexual assault. The proposed regulations, which effectively replace the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter, focus on defining sexual harassment under Title IX; outlining those triggers that legally obligate a school to respond to allegations or incidences of sexual harassment; and clarifying school response procedures and requirements. One focus of the new regulations is increased fairness and reliability of outcomes. The proposed regulations require enhanced “due process” protections for all formal resolutions, including:

  • Live Hearings – the proposed rule requires live hearings when investigating a formal complaint at both public and private institutions
  • Objective evaluation of all relevant evidence, including both inculpatory and exculpatory evidence, and provide that credibility determinations may not be based on a person’s status as a complainant, respondent, or witness;
  • Presumption of non-responsibility throughout the  grievance procedure;
  • Burden of proof and burden of gathering evidence must rest on the school, not the parties;
  • Single-investigator models are prohibited – the regulations require a decision-maker at a hearing investigating a formal complaint separate from the Title IX Coordinator or investigator.
  • Provide both parties with an equal opportunity to be accompanied at all phases of the grievance procedure by an advisor of the party’s choice (who may be an attorney); the institution can proscribe the advisor’s role except in the instance of cross examination
  • Provide an opportunity to test the credibility of the parties and witnesses through cross-examination (subject to “rape shield” protections regarding a complainant’s sexual history) which must be conducted by each party’s advisor (no personal confrontation is allowed);
  • Prohibit consideration by the decision-maker of any evidence offered by a witness who fails to appear to be cross-examined;
  • Provide to each party an advisor “aligned with that party” for cross examination purposes if the party does not have an advisor at the hearing;
  • Provide both parties with an equal opportunity to present witnesses and other inculpatory and exculpatory evidence;
  • Provide both parties with equal access to review all the evidence that the school investigator has collected that relates to the complaint (whether the institution intends to rely on it or not), and give each party ten days to respond regarding their review of the evidence prior to finalizing the investigative report; the draft rule explicitly notes this practice is consistent with FERPA;
  • Provide a final investigative report to the parties at least ten days prior to the hearing;
  • Provide both parties with written notice of allegations and written notice of any interview, meeting, or hearing at which a party is invited or expected to participate;
  • Include reasonably prompt timeframes for conclusion of the grievance process, including reasonably prompt timeframes for filing and resolving appeals, if the school offers an appeal.  The regulations allow for temporary delays of the grievance process or the limited extension of timeframes for good cause with written notice to both parties of the delay or extension and the reasons for the action.  (Examples of considerations for “good cause” may include absence of the parties or witnesses, concurrent law enforcement activity, or the need for language assistance or accommodation of disabilities.)
  • The proposed regulations also provide for informal resolution.

jdsupra.com By Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP

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NEW TITLE IX Proposal Would Restore Fairness in Sexual-Misconduct Cases

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NEW TITLE IX Proposal Would Restore Fairness in Sexual-Misconduct Cases

Thank God for Betsy DeVos. With the release on Friday of the proposed new rules for adjudicating campus sexual-misconduct cases, the education secretary has taken an important step toward restoring common sense and sanity in how these cases are handled. My firm has represented more than 100 students and professors at more than 80 institutions across the country —we have seen both sides of this issue. And I can say, without qualification, that these rules would be a significant step forward for both sides. First, the accusers: In our experience, they don’t always want to punish the accused.  The Obama administration gave accusers essentially two options — do nothing, or commit to the total Title IX process. Alternative forms of resolution were falsely equated with sweeping sexual assault under the rug.  The new proposed rules would, fortunately, change this. And in so doing, they would return agency to the accuser. The news for the accused is also heartening. First, the new rules would require colleges to permit cross-examination by a party’s adviser. If you accuse someone of a terrible thing, he or she should have the right to question you, effectively, about that. The second hugely significant change is the requirement that colleges hold live hearings on sexual-misconduct allegations. To be sure, no system designed or run by human beings is perfect. The Obama administration put its thumb entirely on the accusers’ side of the scale, because they were more interested in fighting a culture war than being fair. (“Due process matters” is a decidedly less catchy rallying cry than “start by believing.”) The new proposed rules, by contrast, may be the most balanced thing I have seen come out of the Trump administration, and Secretary DeVos should be applauded for her courage. If put in place, the rules will finally begin to restore sanity to a process that too often shortchanges both sides of a difficult issue.

chronicle By Justin Dillon

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