DUE PROCESS Legal Update: UC Santa Barbara Found in Contempt of Court
In a remarkable step, a judge in the Santa Barbara County Superior Court has found the University of California, Santa Barbara in contempt of court for failing to comply with a court decision regarding the rights of an accused student in a campus sexual misconduct proceeding. As is all too common in these cases, UCSB rendered its decision without granting Doe a hearing or an opportunity to confront his accuser… Finding that UCSB had not complied with its own policies, Judge Geck ordered UCSB to reinstate Doe and to reconsider his appeal using not only the investigator’s report, but all the evidence presented at the appeal hearing. In February 2018, the appeals panel convened again to reconsider its decision in Doe’s case. The panel once again rejected Doe’s appeal and dismissed him from the university. The revised appeal decision included introductory language stating that the panel had now considered all the evidence from the appeal hearing. But the actual decision itself was “identical in every respect to the original Appeal Decision,” according to an August 2018 court order finding UCSB in contempt of the court’s December 2017 ruling. According to the court, the new language indicated “that the panel did not genuinely reconsider the case, but simply added language that would make the original decision look like a truly reconsidered decision.” This time around, Judge Geck made clear that she did not trust the appeals panel to once again reconsider Doe’s case, since that panel “does not appear to be inclined” to “independently review the evidence” and make its own decision. As a result, she ordered UCSB to vacate entirely the finding of responsibility against Doe and to re-admit him as a student effective Fall 2018.
thefire.org By Samantha Harris UCSB dailynexus.UC Regents Found in Contempt
