STUDENTS CLEARED of Rape Sue Wofford. Males Claim College is Biased & Failed To Protect Them From False Accusation.
Two former male students from Wofford College say the way the school handled an unfounded sexual assault complaint against them amounts to sexual harassment. The unnamed men sued the Upstate, South Carolina college saying that it destroyed evidence that was favorable to the men. The students identified as John Doe and Jack Roe enrolled in the private South Carolina college in 2014, but withdrew in 2016, citing repercussions from the school’s actions that failed to protect them from false accusations. While “hundreds of students at the school heard the false allegations that the Plaintiffs were rapists,” the lawsuit claimed none of the students heard they were cleared of wrongdoing or of Doe’s and Roe’s complaints. In their suit, Doe and Roe also criticized the coordinator’s and deputy coordinator’s actions, claiming they fabricated an allegation, were biased against men and failed to investigate their complaints.
The male students say that Wofford College was “deliberately indifferent” to a number of circumstances including:
- Plaintiffs’ complaints about being sexually harassed and called rapists
- PG’s violation of the no-contact order
- Plaintiffs’ rights to be free from the improper use of its Title IX policy to charge male students without any cause but fail to investigate complaints against female students
Wofford issued a no-contact order for the students, but the men say in the lawsuit the woman harassed them at a fraternity function and later assaulted one of the men at a party. The court filing said the school destroyed video evidence that would have incriminated the woman. “Instead of opening an investigation, Defendant condoned and hid the female’s misrepresentation about her conduct in relation to the Halloween party assault,” according to the lawsuit. “This destruction marked at least four times that Defendant destroyed evidence favorable to Doe or Roe or detrimental to the Defendant.” The school’s handling of the situation caused Roe and Doe to experience “mental anguish, humiliation, embarrassment, loss of reputation, anxiety, physical hurt, loss of investment, loss of time, loss of money,” according to the suit. It requested compensatory damages and attorney’s fees.
newsweek– Jenni Fink miamiherald-Charles Duncan
