RULING. Syracuse Must Turn Over Advisor Records That May Demonstrate University Bias Against Male
At Syracuse University, counselors on the counseling center’s Sexual and Relationship Violence Response Team play a dual role: they can provide therapy to a student who may have been sexually assaulted, while also serving as that student’s advisor in campus disciplinary proceedings.
Attorneys for John Doe, a student suing Syracuse University for expelling him after an allegedly unfair disciplinary proceeding, believe that the complainant’s advisor, Tekhara Watson — a member of the Sexual and Relationship Violence Response Team — may have pressured her to file a university Title IX complaint even after she chose not to pursue the matter with police. Doe’s attorneys believe this information may be critical to proving their case that Syracuse’s treatment of Doe was biased and unfair, and they requested it be turned over as part of discovery in the case. Last week, a federal magistrate judge agreed, ordering that a limited number of “stringently redacted” records be turned over to Doe and his lawyers.
The order came after the judge conducted an in camera review of the documents and determined that “portions of Ms. Watson’s notes are relevant to plaintiff’s theories that Syracuse University’s disciplinary proceedings were procedurally unfair and biased against male students.” Syracuse, by its own admission, maintains a process in which a counselor’s role as a therapist can be “intertwined” with his or her role as an advocate in campus judicial proceedings. Were that not the case, Doe and his attorneys would not have been seeking her records.
Far from being a “broad” decision that suddenly makes therapy records fair game for accused-student plaintiffs and their attorneys, this is a narrow ruling based specifically on Syracuse’s choice to intertwine the roles of therapist and procedural advocate in sexual misconduct cases. Moreover, the judge followed a very thorough process, ordering a redacted production only after privately reviewing the documents and determining that they were so relevant to Doe’s claims of bias that the interests of justice demanded they be turned over.
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