SUSPENDED FOOTBALL Player Files Suit Against LSU For ‘Biased, Flawed & Unlawful Process”
An LSU football player [falsely] suspended for a Title IX violation filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, alleging it made an “unjust and discriminatory decision… following a biased, flawed, confusing and unlawful process.”
According to the complaint, the suspended LSU football player met a female student at a bar near campus. He asked her if she wanted to have sex and she agreed. Afterward, he accompanied her to her dorm, where the two parted ways. Later the male was found responsible for a Title IX violation, which alleges that he engaged in nonconsensual sexual intercourse with a female LSU student. LSU suspended the football player for a year.
Attorneys for the suspended football player say LSU did not provide him an opportunity to have a hearing or review evidence or witnesses against him before concluding its investigation. “LSU has a very confusing policy where you have to jump through a number of hoops before you’re even allowed for a hearing,” said his attorney Susan Stone. “If they find you responsible, then you get an appeal process, and only then, when two, three different layers find you responsible, do you have a hearing. So you’re already stigmatized as being responsible before you’ve had an opportunity to confront or cross-examine your accuser. How is that fair?”
“We really made an extensive and earnest effort to try avoid having to file a lawsuit,” said Kristina Supler, one of the player’s attorneys. “However, LSU gave us no choice by denying the process that was due to our client and demonstrating an unwillingness to reach any sort of mutually agreeable path forward. LSU had a variety of sanctions that could have been identified. Without affording the full process allowed for our client to say, ‘I didn’t do this,’ the sanction was imposed to suspend him for a year.
“It is a very, very harsh sanction, with not only academic implications, but also the impact on a promising athletic career as well.” “This type of finding will follow you,” Stone said. “Basically, without due process, his career has been destroyed.”
espn.com-Adam Rittenberg
