OLE MISS ADDS Protections For Accused Students After Judge Approves Anti-Male Bias Lawsuits
Months after a federal judge greenlit two lawsuits against the University of Mississippi by students it punished for sexual misconduct, the public university is switching things up. Ole Miss announced earlier this month that it’s dissolving the Office of Leadership and Advocacy, according to The Daily Mississippian. Its services, including case management teams for alleged victims of sexual misconduct, will now merge with the Violence Intervention and Prevention Office under a joint office titled “UMatter.” While the article doesn’t specify the “additional support service available to the accused,” UMatter’s website links to a resource page that offers an advisor upon request.
The university initially expelled the student who filed the second lawsuit, saying he didn’t get consent for sexual intercourse while both he and his partner were intoxicated.U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan allowed the Title IX and due process claims by “Andrew Doe” to move forward in a January ruling. He cited Title IX investigator Honey Belle Ussery’s decision to exclude exculpatory evidence from her report, including medical records that showed Andrew’s accuser “did not believe she was raped.” The ruling also keeps alive Andrew’s argument that the preponderance-of-evidence standard in and of itself violates due process, especially in a he-said, she-said case such as Andrew’s. It’s Judge Jordan’s second ruling against Ole Miss in less than a year on a motion to dismiss a Title IX lawsuit by an accused student. Last summer he approved similar claims by “John Doe,” citing Ussery’s investigative practices and Title IX training materials that suggest even “lies” by an accuser “should be considered a side effect of an assault.” The organizational shift by Ole Miss is a “rare instance of a university responding to court setbacks by seeming to(?) create somewhat fairer procedures,” Brooklyn College professor KC Johnson, who chronicles Title IX litigation, noted in a tweet last week.
thecollegefix-Ethan Berman
