PENN STATE Settles w John Doe. Investigation Violated Doe’s Due Process Rights
An out-of-court settlement has been reached in one of three suits against Penn State over the way the university investigates and disciplines students accused of sexual misconduct. Terms were not included in the settlement notice filed Friday in U.S. Middle District Court. The plaintiff John Doe immigrated to the United States in 2002, and became a citizen eight years later. The litigation stems from a Title IX panel that found Doe violated the university’s Student Code of Conduct. Doe says he was suspended and expelled from a seven-year program affiliated with Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University as the result of false allegations of nonconsensual sexual activity with a woman in the same program. He describes himself as a “victim of unlawful, targeted, biased, arbitrary and capricious disciplinary actions at the hands of Penn State administrators.”
Doe contended the disciplinary process in sexual misconduct cases is tainted by anti-male bias and it violated his due process rights. The university responded the investigation was “fundamentally fair” and denied that its disciplinary process is gender biased. A preliminary injunction Brann issued Aug. 18, 2017, prevented the university from enforcing sanctions against Doe, which included suspension for the fall semester and bans from campus housing and the pre-med program. A month later the university notified Doe the panel’s findings and sanctions were vacated and he would be retried. Penn State later abandoned those plans. Two other suits that similarly challenge the disciplinary process are pending before Brann.
pennlive.com By John Beauge
