FANTASTIC RULING: Appeals Court Orders Arizona State To Reinstate Male Expelled For Having A Threesome
Arizona State University relied on flawed findings to wrongfully expel a male student who was accused of sexual misconduct, the Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled. The former student, John Doe, sued the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees the universities, and several ASU staffers last year in local and federal courts.
He alleged he was denied due process when he was kicked out of the university after a female student he had sex with at a party alleged that she was too impaired to consent. Last week, the appellate court ruled partly in Doe’s favor and a federal court allowed part of Doe’s lawsuit to proceed. It concluded that substantial evidence did not support ASU’s finding that “John Doe” engaged in sexual misconduct against “Jane Roe” during a threesome with another male student.
The late December opinion, written by Judge Diane Johnsen and joined by Judges Kenton Jones and James Morse Jr., unanimously overturned John’s expulsion. One issue under consideration: the finding by James Rund, ASU senior vice president for educational outreach and student services, that a rational woman would not consent to a threesome, making Jane incapacitated. (Rund did not say the same about a rational man.)
The case is the latest example of a so-called “reverse-Title IX,” where a male student files suit after a university sexual misconduct investigation. In recent years, lawsuits from mostly male students who claim they were wrongly accused or that their disciplinary processes were flawed have gained steam. That trend has emerged as a type of backlash after the Obama administration called on universities in 2011 to treat claims of sexual misconduct more seriously or face the loss of federal funds.
Doe, like others who filed suit across the country, said the Title IX investigation process was biased against men. His case marks a rare instance of an Arizona court overturning the finding of a university’s disciplinary investigation.
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