RULING: Reinstate Football Player. “Univ.Southern Miss. Did Not Extend Due Process”
A federal judge ordered the University of Southern Mississippi last month to allow a football player to return after the university ruled that he had broken the school’s sexual misconduct policy and suspended him for a year. In ruling on the player’s “emergency motion for temporary restraining order and injunctive relief,” United States District Judge Keith Starrett concluded that the university had not extended due process during a July hearing before the university’s Sexual Misconduct Investigative Team. Starrett ruled, “Allow plaintiff to enter campus for the purpose of attending the courses at the university that he is presently enrolled in and all activities necessary to maintain his athletic scholarship, which may include, inter alia, training, practices, games, team meetings and the like. ”The court prefaced it’s decision by noting that “the purpose of a preliminary injunction is to preserve the status quo and thus prevent irreparable harm until the respective rights of the parties can be ascertained during a trial on the merits. “Only in rare instances is this type of injunction proper,” the opinion went on to read. “In its discretion, based on the totality of the circumstances of this case, the (c)ourt finds this is one of those rare instances.”
wdam By Tim Doherty
