MONTAGUE UPDATE: Did Yale Violate Law & Destroy Notes in Sex-Misconduct Proceedings?
The power to fine universities or yank federal funding from them is seldom used by the Department of Education in Title IX investigations. The department does pay close attention to some legal violations, however: those involving the Clery Act. The 1990 law requires schools to compile and publish data on campus crime, including sexual assault, and Yale may have violated it by destroying notes in sexual-misconduct proceedings. The allegation was made in a July legal filing by Jack Montague, the former Yale basketball team captain who was expelled from the school in 2016 on sexual-assault allegations. He’s been suing Yale for more than two years for running an alleged kangaroo court that went so far as to lie to his accuser to compel her participation. When Yale sought to have the case dismissed ahead of a jury trial, Montague reminded the judge that his lawsuit had compelled the university to acknowledge that its University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct destroys its panelists’ notes after the appeals process concludes. This “practice” is not disclosed anywhere in writing, a Yale official said in a deposition, and admitted the notes might be “relevant” to accused students who are considering legal action against Yale.
thecollegefix.com By Greg Piper
