DUE PROCESS Legal Update: 5 New Federal Complaints. 3 New Federal Court Decisions.
As the Department of Education continues to consider more than 100,000 comments on its proposed new Title IX regulations, the tide of lawsuits from accused students who allege they were denied a fair process in campus judicial proceedings continues to rise in the courts.
Five new federal complaints were filed in September, against Eastern Kentucky University, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, the University of Pittsburgh, Rice University, and the University of Maine Farmington. September also brought three new federal court decisions, continuing to reshape the relationship between higher education and the judiciary.
Most notably, on Sept. 23, a jury found Boston College liable for breaching its contract with a student who was wrongly found responsible for sexual misconduct in a case of mistaken identity… Last week, a federal district court in Tennessee dismissed a student’s lawsuit against Vanderbilt University stemming from his expulsion from Vanderbilt without a hearing, without the opportunity to confront his accuser, and without the opportunity to see all of the evidence against him.
Even at public universities, where students are constitutionally entitled to at least some degree of procedural fairness, there are many hurdles to getting relief in the courts.
thefire.org– Samantha Harris
