CLASS-ACTION Lawsuits Filed Against Cal State, UC For Depriving Accused Students of Title IX Due Process
When a federal appeals court ruling opened the floodgates to class-action litigation against universities in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee for depriving accused students of due process, a pioneering lawyer took advantage of it. California state courts have also proven friendly to the victims of Title IX kangaroo courts, leading another lawyer to file class-action suits against the 10-campus University of California and 23-campus California State University systems in the past month. And yet again, the Title IX coordinator for the UC system is pledging to ignore judicial orders until forced to comply. The Los Angeles Times reports on the new lawsuits on behalf of UC and Cal State students by Mark Hathaway, who has represented several students in successful actions against their California institutions, public and private.
“This class action seeks to clear the records of those who’ve been wrongfully punished by this deeply flawed disciplinary system,” said Mark Hathaway. The lawsuits mark an emerging strategy by students accused of sexual misconduct to use class-action lawsuits to force universities to set aside, en masse, findings and sanctions that led to their suspension or expulsion. The nation’s first class action was filed July 5 against Michigan State University, followed by Cal State on July 16 and UC this week.
The Cal State and UC lawsuits cover all students who were suspended or expelled since June 2015, when both systems issued new Title IX policies that sought to be more sensitive to victims. Brett Sokolow, president of the Assn. of Title IX Administrators, called class action a “clever approach” that would make legal action accessible to potentially thousands of students unable to afford personal lawsuits. He said more than 300 students across the nation have filed lawsuits challenging their Title IX outcomes, but he estimated that as many as 20,000 students at the nation’s 4,500 colleges may have been disciplined for sexual misconduct.
thecollegefix-Greg Piper latimes-Teresa Watanabe
