DUE Process Rights

Articles relating to due process rights for our College boys

LAWSUIT: GWU BLOCKS Appeal by Accused after Accuser Caught Creating Cell Phone ‘Evidence’

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LAWSUIT: GWU BLOCKS Appeal by Accused after Accuser Caught Creating Cell Phone ‘Evidence’

In January 2018, George Washington University found John Doe responsible for sexually assaulting Jane Roe in 2015 and suspended him for one year.  The key evidence that Roe was too intoxicated to consent was an alleged phone call between her and a friend “E.E.”  E.E. claimed that Roe slurred her words and was clearly incapacitated. It was the only testimony out of six (before the hearing board) that claimed Roe was visibly drunk and spoke “incoherently.” But then Doe discovered that the phone call was a fabrication, it never happened.  And the discovery of the invented phone call between Roe and E.E. came nearly two months after Doe filed his appeal. Currently GWU is refusing to grant an appeal to the accused student it found responsible for sexual assault, choosing instead to ‘ignore the revelation that his accuser fabricated a key piece of evidence and likely mischaracterized her inebriation.’  Doe filed a motion for partial summary judgment in his lawsuit against the private university last week, asking a federal judge to force it to hear his appeal, which GWU deemed not “viable.”…According to KC Johnson, the worst aspect is that ‘GW now knows the accuser (and the university’s star witness) weren’t telling the truth, and knows that its decision is robbing the accused student of a chance of attending grad school, and the university doesn’t care.”  “At some point the truth has to matter” the filing says.

thecollegefix.com By Megan Keller

 

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THE FALLOUT From Obama Pressuring Colleges, Weaponizing TitleIX & Denying Due Process

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THE FALLOUT From Obama Pressuring Colleges, Weaponizing TitleIX & Denying Due Process

In April of 2011, the Obama administration changed Title IX policy, pressuring colleges to adopt procedures that dramatically increased the chances of a guilty finding in sexual misconduct cases. Justice for accused males became so rare that many turned to the courts, filing suit for loss of due process. Since then, universities and colleges have suffered 97 setbacks in these suits, few of them as dramatic as the ruling against Johnson & Wales University of Providence, Rhode Island. After an hour-long oral argument in which Judge John McConnell (an Obama nominee) peppered JWU’s lawyers with skeptical questions, the judge ruled from the bench that the Title IX claim would proceed. “On the pleadings,” he said, he could “find no reason at all why the result was Mr. Doe’s expulsion. The only inference [is] . . . gender played a role,” in violation of Title IX. Beyond the injustice, there were three ways that this ruling particularly stood out. First: more attention has been paid to bias in the training federal regulations require – not just Title IX investigators but also adjudicators. No school has voluntarily disclosed the contents of Title IX training. Doe’s lawyer, James Ehrhard, asked Johnson & Wales University for a copy of its training so he could identify JWU’s own biases and allow his client to conduct a robust defense. The university refused. Second: JWU contended that perhaps its policies were biased in favor of accusers, but that didn’t mean the policies discriminated on the basis of gender. Judge McConnell rejected this reasoning. Third: The timing of events at JWU was particularly notable. The JWU case casts strong doubts on the merits of the claims offered by the accusers’ rights groups. This entire adjudication- including the appeal, and the university’s refusal to give Ehrhard access to the training material used by the adjudicators- occurred after DeVos had withdrawn the Obama-era guidance. And yet JWU proceeded apace, maintaining the unfair policies it had adopted under Obama.

mindingthecampus.org By KC Johnson

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DEPTof EDUC. Investigates USC for Denying Resources to Males-that Only Females Get

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DEPTof EDUC. Investigates USC for Denying Resources to Males-that Only Females Get

The U.S. Department of Education is officially investigating allegations that the University of Southern California excludes male students from certain educational opportunities. OCR has agreed to investigate four USC initiatives, including the school’s Smart Women’s Securities chapter and the Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) chapter. Both of these programs allegedly discriminate “by excluding male students from participation and providing opportunities for female students only,” according to the OCR letter, which notes that many female-only scholarships at USC are also under investigation. Men are now a slight minority at USC, constituting only 48 percent of the student body. Women have also outpaced men in earning BAs since the 1981-1982 academic year and since then, the gender-gap has grown. By 2018 there is projected to be a 25 percent “gender degree gap” favoring women. USC Provost Fellow Kursat Pekgoz says that “there is no longer any valid reason to maintain affirmative action for women” considering their now-majority status. He also expressed disapproval with the lack of resources colleges provide for student fathers, citing for example how “the USC WISE program offers resources to pregnant women and women with children, [but offers] no equivalent resource for fathers.”

campusreform.org By Toni Airaksinen

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SETTLEMENT: Austin College Settles Due Process Title IX Lawsuit with John Doe

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SETTLEMENT: Austin College Settles Due Process Title IX Lawsuit with John Doe

Per KC Johnson’s tweet: 24hrs before preliminary injunction hearing, Austin College due process lawsuit is settled. 32nd fed’l lawsuit on issue settled before any court decision in case. Original complaint reported by Dan Bauman is here: )

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PROF Files TitleIX Complaint Against Syracuse for ‘Sham’ Proceeding Against Fraternity

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PROF Files TitleIX Complaint Against Syracuse for ‘Sham’ Proceeding Against Fraternity

It may be too late for Theta Tau to get a fair disciplinary proceeding at Syracuse University for its “satirical skits,” but the “faculty procedural advisor” for three of the 18 accused students wants to make sure the U.S. DoED is hovering like a hawk over the university. Law Prof. Gregory Germain accuses Syracuse of anti-male discrimination, using Title IX for “political purposes” and violating the students’ “fundamental rights to due process.”

The Title IX office that is administering the proceeding is the sole complainant, the prosecutor (a trained lawyer in the department will be making the University’s Title IX argument even though the students must defend themselves without counsel able to speak), and has complete control over the appointment of the hearing panel with administrators beholden to the Chancellor [Kent Syverud] for the jobs, and the conduct of the proceeding.

Germain told DoED that Syracuse University is wrongly using a Title IX hearing panel to judge both Title IX and Code of Student Conduct claims, the latter of which requires an “independent student panel.”  It’s the only way to ensure the accused students get a “fair proceeding as opposed to a complete sham proceeding,” the law professor said.

thecollegefix.com By Greg Piper

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RULING in N.Carolina: Title IX Could Become a Sex Offender Registry

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RULING in N.Carolina: Title IX Could Become a Sex Offender Registry

Imagine being a first year college student and unfairly accused of sexual misconduct then convicted without due process–and then having your name publicly released. That is what might happen if a North Carolina judicial ruling is upheld.  The release of the name of anyone convicted of sexual misconduct in a court of law is customary and correct. But college students in the North Carolina case have not been found guilty in a court of law. They have been found guilty by tribunals that many regard as campus kangaroo courts.  “The Obama Administration’s 2011 “Dear Colleague” guidance forced universities to establish Title IX systems in which amateurs investigate and adjudicate alleged sexual assaults. The accused often lack legal counsel and may not get the chance to present exculpatory evidence. Instead of “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the Title IX system relies on the much weaker “preponderance of evidence” standard. A 50.1% tilt of evidence proves guilt.” The North Carolina ruling opens the door for the Title IX equivalent of a sexual offender registry.

www.iwf.org By Charlotte Hays

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COLLEGE BLACKS are Targeted and TitleIX Accused. Why? They are Denied Due Process.

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COLLEGE BLACKS are Targeted and TitleIX Accused. Why? They are Denied Due Process.

In 2016 Sacred Heart Univ. student Nikki Yovino (white) claimed she was sexually assaulted by two men (black). In 2017 Nikki admitted to a Detective that “she made up the allegation of sexual assault because it was the first thing that came to mind.”  Too often, due process is denied in the campus tribunals that have been erected in the wake of the Obama era Title IX mandate, and the denial of due process protections to the accused-whatever their race-is certainly a civil rights issue and demands systematic data collection and public scrutiny.  For example, Colgate was investigated by OCR for potential race discrimination on its sexual assault adjudication process. In the 2013-14 academic year, 4.2 percent of Colgate’s students were black but in that same year, black male students made up 40 percent of the students adjudicated. The Atlantic lists several other schools involved in civil lawsuits filed by accused male students with what the magazine called “racial aspects.”  Harvard Law Prof Jeannie Suk Gerson, found that “in general, the administrators and faculty members she has spoken with who work on sexual misconduct cases indicate that “most of the complaints they see are against minorities.”  Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos recognizes the real violations of civil rights that have been occurring under Title IX and promised to “end the era of rule by letter” begun by the Obama administration.

catholiccitizens.org By Anne Hendershott

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CA JUDGE Orders Pomona to Pay Attorney Fees. Rules Pomona “Denied Him a Fair Hearing”

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CA JUDGE Orders Pomona to Pay Attorney Fees. Rules Pomona “Denied Him a Fair Hearing”

On Tuesday, May 1, 2018 Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mary Strobel ordered Pomona College to pay $130,000 in attorneys’ fees to an accused student in a faulty Title IX administrative process. In setting aside Pomona College’s Title IX decision against the student, the court found that Pomona College had improperly told the complainant that she could answer questions in advance in writing, a procedure not found in Pomona College’s policies. The complainant also refused to attend the campus hearing, in person or by Skype, even though the hearing date was arranged to accommodate her schedule, so “Petitioner was unable to ask the [adjudicator] to pose questions to Roe at the hearing. It is entirely unclear whether the [adjudicator] would have made the same credibility determinations had Roe been questioned. The court finds that cumulatively, these conditions were prejudicial to Petitioner and denied him a fair hearing.”

In ordering Pomona College to pay $130,000 of the student’s legal fees, Judge Strobel found that the accused student’s court appeal “enforced the right to due process in academic sexual harassment investigations and proceedings” and “conferred a significant benefit on the general public or a large class of persons.” California Code of Civil Procedure sec. 1021.5 provides for an award of attorney’s fees when a lawsuit results in a significant public benefit, in this case the right of college and university students to due process in Title IX disciplinary cases.

The student was represented by Mark M. Hathaway

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A JURY Acquitted Khan of Rape, but Yale Might Railroad him. Say Good Bye to Due Process.

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A JURY Acquitted Khan of Rape, but Yale Might Railroad him. Say Good Bye to Due Process.

To much of the public, Saifullah Khan’s lightning-fast acquittal by a jury was perplexing and unjust. It was only when jurors and court observers shared their firsthand accounts, as did  Cynthia Garrett of Families Advocating for Campus Equality  that the public got a sense of how shoddy the rape case against the Yale student was ..“the Yale community seems to be in denial” when it comes to giving Khan a fair chance at returning to the University. “It isn’t even a measure of the differences in standards of evidence,” said Garrett. “[The jury] didn’t believe her, they said they didn’t believe her, she was not credible, this is not he said-she said, this is ‘we don’t believe her, and the evidence supports what he said.’ … Why is it that an ideology has to supersede actual facts?” Now that Khan is a free man, he is entering a secret prison: Yale’s Title IX proceeding.

thecollegefix.com By Greg Piper

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