| Blog and Media Roundup - Thursday, December 7, 2017; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 7 2017, 03:59 AM (91 Views) | |
| abb | Dec 7 2017, 03:59 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/39633/ Yale tries to extort another $3,000 from student suing it for kangaroo court expulsion Greg Piper - Associate Editor •December 4, 2017 You can afford to pay us for your transcript, university claims Yale University expelled Jack Montague for nonconsensual sex with a female student shortly before he was to graduate, despite the agreed-upon fact that she returned to sleep with him hours after he allegedly raped her. Despite a federal judge referring to that female student as a “victim” and refusing to order Yale to follow its own sexual-assault adjudication rules, Montague is still pressing his case in court – but now Yale is trying to kneecap his defense and any chance at continuing his education. The former basketball team captain is under a public-relations assault from the Ivy League university because he’s getting outside help paying legal bills for the lawsuit. Yale lawyers convinced the judge to make public a March deposition in which Montague says he has received $25,000 to $30,000 from unidentified alumni, the Associated Press reports. MORE: Lawsuit says Yale violated rules and ignored evidence in rape case The university wants to force Montague’s parents to say how much they are paying a “public relations firm” to tell his side of the litigation to the public. Montague has claimed he can’t apply to other schools while Yale refuses to give him his transcripts. It’s demanding $3,000 for the transcripts, which represents his tuition debt for the semester when Yale expelled him (“So, as soon as I was expelled, they sent me a bill for $3,000”). The university’s lawyers say the money for the PR firm and the fundraising for his legal fees – which included an unofficial team fundraiser that netted about $5,000 – “could have been used to pay the outstanding bill at Yale University and obtain his transcript, thereby enabling him to apply to other colleges and universities in a timely manner.” That’s utter BS, Montague said in his deposition. He wants to apply to Vanderbilt University near his home to finish his degree, but if the judge doesn’t force Yale to readmit him or pay him damages, he’d have to pay $60,000 to $70,000 for a full year at Vanderbilt – “something that my parents cannot afford.” According to the Yale Daily News, the trial is expected to start in February. Eileen O’Connor, the university’s vice president for communications, contacted The College Fix after this post was published. She wrote: Yale respects the privacy of its former students, strives to help them move on with their lives, and would never vindictively withhold a transcript. If a former student requested a waiver of owed fees because of demonstrated financial hardship, Yale would grant the request. Mr. Montague has informed Yale that he is currently attending Belmont University. A spokesperson for Max Stern, Montague’s lawyer, told The Fix in an email statement that he indeed enrolled at Belmont this fall: Because not all of his Yale credits transferred, it will take him two semesters to earn his undergraduate degree. Although Jack is still seeking — through the litigation — to be reinstated to Yale and to be awarded the Yale degree he had nearly earned at the time of his wrongful expulsion, he is at the same time trying to move on with his life, and completing his college education is a big part of that. Read the AP and News reports. UPDATE: A Yale spokesperson contacted The Fix after this post was published. Her comment has been added. A spokesperson for Montague’s lawyer also explained the circumstances of his enrollment at Belmont University in response to a new Fix request. |
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| abb | Dec 7 2017, 04:16 AM Post #2 |
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https://www.law360.com/illinois/articles/992182 Campus Assault Book Is Protected Opinion: HarperCollins By Lauraann Wood Law360, Chicago (December 6, 2017, 9:10 PM EST) -- HarperCollins Publishers LLC on Wednesday urged an Illinois federal judge to toss a graduate student’s defamation and invasion of privacy suit against the company and the author of a book on campus sexual assault, saying the student can’t lob such allegations against them because the passages about her are the author’s constitutionally protected opinion. |
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| abb | Dec 7 2017, 04:19 AM Post #3 |
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https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_5c6ca456-daa0-11e7-b985-83d98ff5b695.html Student sues Purdue over handling of alleged 2015 sexual assault Staff Reports 12/6/17 A Purdue student has filed a federal lawsuit against the University, President Mitch Daniels and several employees involved in handling campus sexual assaults, alleging among other things that she was asked "accusatory" questions including "what she was wearing the night of the assault." The plaintiff, whom the Exponent is not identifying because she is an alleged victim, contends in the lawsuit filed Tuesday that she was not afforded due process in a system that was indifferent to her suffering. According to the lawsuit: * The young woman attended an off-campus party on Dec. 5, 2015, hosted by her alleged attacker, whom the Exponent is not identifying because he has not been criminally charged. Afterward, the victim says she returned to her room in McCutcheon Hall, and the other student followed her there and "contrary to her express command not to do so, forced Plaintiff to engage in sexual intercourse against her will." * The next day, she broke down during a sports practice and told her teammates of the sexual assault. * On Dec. 7, she visited the Purdue University Student Hospital, where an assistant nurse practitioner told her "she needed to make better decisions when she is drinking." The young woman said she was not intoxicated at the time of the assault. * Soon after, she told a residence hall worker about the assault, and that employee created an incident report but did not report it to Purdue's Office of Institutional Equity or to law enforcement. * On Dec. 9, the victim was contacted by an employee of Purdue's Center for Advocacy, Response and Education, who also did not inform her of her option to contact police nor offered to help do so. * During winter break, the plaintiff sought help from a rape crisis counselor at home. "No rape crisis counselors were available to students through Purdue University," according to the lawsuit. "Purdue failed to offer, provide or assist Plaintiff in obtaining the medical or psychological services she required as a result of the sexual assault." * During Purdue's Dean of Students and Title IX investigation, the alleged attacker changed his statement during the process "once he realized his bank statements and other evidence did not support his initial version of events." Nonetheless, during a panel meeting, the young woman "was treated as though she was to blame for the assault, and was asked a series of accusatory questions including a question as to what she was wearing the night of the assault." * The final submitted report defended the alleged attacker's version of the night's events, despite his admitting he had been intoxicated and had a vague recollection of the evening and that he had openly denied significant details in his initial response. "Purdue's investigation discriminated against Plaintiff based (on) her gender, by presuming that Plaintiff somehow invited (the) assault," according to the lawsuit. On June 2, 2016, the woman filed a formal discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. That investigation is ongoing, according to the lawsuit. "Purdue University takes all allegations of sexual misconduct seriously and is confident in both the content and application of its Title IX policy, procedures and practices," a Purdue spokesman said Wednesday afternoon. "Federal law and privacy rules prevent the university from discussing the specifics of any case." The University has not had time to respond in court filings to the allegations. |
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| abb | Dec 7 2017, 04:21 AM Post #4 |
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https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/12/07/lawsuit-alleges-howard-university-kept-serial-rapists-campus Serial Rapists A lawsuit against Howard University claims that it knew of multiple reports of sexual assault against certain students but did not remove them from campus. ByJeremy Bauer-Wolf December 7, 2017 Howard University, a revered historically black institution, allowed two students, alleged serial rapists, to remain on campus, according to a federal lawsuit that claims administrators failed in their handling of sexual assault reports. While the university doesn’t explicitly have a legal obligation to remove any student, activists and experts interviewed said when such a pattern emerges, institutions can act, and should do so. Some say that historically black colleges and universities have notoriously been slow to respond to sexual misconduct. The lawsuit coincides with a national debate over the federal gender discrimination law Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Critics of the Obama administration have said his Education Department’s interpretation of Title IX was overzealous and resulted in accused students being treated unfairly on campus. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has since pulled the Obama rules on Title IX, dating back to 2011, and is in the process of revising them. In May, five women, current or former students at the Washington university, filed the lawsuit under the pseudonyms Jane Doe 1 through 5, all asserting they had been sexually assaulted and that administrators generally ignored them or lagged in their responses. Their cases dragged on for many months, when Howard’s policy (and previous federal rules) required a 60-day timeline, according to the complaint. Right after Thanksgiving, a sixth Jane Doe joined the lawsuit, with details about how her case has not been resolved eight months after she reported her rape, and her suit said that she still sees around campus her alleged attacker, who has multiple reports of sexual assault against him. “The university’s actions have exacerbated and extended, rather than corrected, the resulting interference with the educational opportunities of each woman,” the lawsuit states. No court case has definitively concluded that an institution needs to bar a student from campus once he or she is reported for sexual assault, said S. Daniel Carter, president of Safety Advisors for Educational Campuses, which consults with colleges on matters of sexual misconduct. The Title IX standard colleges must meet is eliminating a hostile environment, Carter said. “But when you get accused of multiple offenses or criminally convicted, it becomes harder and harder to make the argument that anything short of removal is sufficient,” he said. But with the Howard case, the punishment seemingly wasn’t even a question -- administrators allegedly did so little that they weren’t even considering suspension until apparently more than seven months or so after one report had been filed, Carter said. Spokeswoman Crystal Brown said in a statement that Howard does not comment on Title IX cases or pending litigation. “Howard University takes very seriously all allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence and gender-based discrimination occurring on the university's campus or involving the university's students. Our commitment is evidenced by our rigorous enforcement of the university's Title IX Policy on Prohibited Sexual Harassment and Gender-Based Discrimination in Education Program and Activities. The university has been, and remains, committed to diligently investigating any such allegations to ensure a safe and healthy community for our faculty, staff and students.” According to the lawsuit, Jane Doe 2 reported her rape to administrators in October 2015, expressing concerns that her alleged assailant was a resident assistant in her dormitory and thus had access to her room key. He had stalked Doe 2 since the beginning of that semester, the suit states, but Howard’s Title IX coordinator, Candi N. Smiley, told Doe 2 he could not be moved until an investigation had finished. Doe 2 provided Smiley that October with text and email messages that allegedly proved that she was being harassed and that the rape occurred, but she did not hear any response until December, when Smiley asked Doe 2 to resend them. She tried to drop out at the end of fall 2015 semester after hearing no response for the rest of that year -- the lawsuit states Doe 2 was on “the brink of losing her scholarship” and depressed and fearful she would encounter her rapist. Doe 2 had moved out of the dormitory where he was a resident assistant, but found later she had been charged for doing so when administrators had assured her she would not be. The university also removed her Pell Grant and need-based scholarship from her transcript, charged her for that amount of money, and sent her multiple notices threatening to send her to collections, the complaint states. Doe 2 didn’t hear anything from Howard until March 2016, right after she had reached out to Doe 1, who had gone on a “storm” on Twitter how the university had similarly botched her report of rape -- against the same man who allegedly assaulted Doe 2. He had transferred from University of California, Los Angeles, after being accused of sexual misconduct there, the suit states. For a third time, Smiley asked to see the text messages Doe 2 had sent twice, the complaint states. In April 2016, Smiley informed Doe 2 that the university had suspended her alleged attacker for two years. But no one notified Doe 1 of the outcome. She reported her rape in February 2016, but after she met with Smiley, Doe 1 didn’t hear anything from her from March 1 through March 21, except for Smiley contacting Doe 1 to ask if she had been discussing the rape in text messages with her friends -- she had not, the lawsuit states. Doe 1 called Smiley four times during that period with no response. Frustrated, Doe 1 posted to Twitter in late March 2016, identifying her and Doe 2’s attacker -- that’s how she connected with Doe 2. This prompted Howard to release a statement: “There has been an allegation of sexual assault committed by a Howard University student against another Howard student. The university administration is aware of the allegation and took immediate action as soon as we learned of this matter.” By that point, Doe 1, who was also a resident assistant, had been fired from her position based on a report her alleged assailant gave to residence life. No one ever told Doe 1 that her rapist was kicked off campus. In a similar set of circumstances, Doe 6 reported her sexual assault in April 2016, but largely did not hear from administration until a full year later, when a dean told her the attacker had raped someone else and that the university was “reopening her case.” Doe 6 also discovered before she reported her alleged assailant he had multiple cases of sexual violence already open against him -- but he still is permitted on campus to this day, according to the complaint. BuzzFeed first reported details of the amended complaint. Though institutions can't weigh character evidence when adjudicating a Title IX complaint, they can factor in multiple reports with a pattern, said Laura Dunn, founder of SurvJustice, which advocates for sexual assault victims. The job of Title IX coordinators is not only to respond to reports, but also track these patterns of discrimination on campus, Dunn said. In theory, a college or university can flag an individual even without a complaint to work from, she said -- or, in the event of a dead end to an investigation, a person can be removed from a position of power. In the Howard case, the alleged rapist could have been fired as a resident assistant during the investigation. “It’s pretty clear Howard University was not proactively engaging,” she said. The prevalence of repeat offenders has been challenged in recent years. One 2015 study, led by then Georgia State University assistant professor of psychology Kevin Swartout, now an associate professor, purported that only 25 percent of the men who reported committing acts of rape did so multiple times. This went against oft-cited research in 2002 by David Lisak, then a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts that cited the number as high as 63 percent. In light of the newer study, colleges should act more carefully, said Brett Sokolow, president of the Association of Title IX Administrators and the NCHERM Group, a consulting firm for institutions. “In a situation in which serial offenses are alleged -- but a pattern may not yet be proven -- I think colleges would be well advised to bring their behavioral intervention or threat assessment teams into play,” Sokolow wrote in an email. “Colleges don’t want to suspend anyone without reasonable cause, but often they’re really only speculating as to pattern and the potential to reoffend when all they have are allegations.” Not all the plaintiffs in the Howard case allege that their attackers raped multiple people. After Jane Doe 3 began a relationship with a campus police officer, he sexually and physically abused her: according to the lawsuit, he “hit her, pushed her, strangled her and threw things at her.” She told Howard officials she was suicidal and requested solo counseling, not group therapy, as had been suggested, but they ignored her calls. Because her grades slipped, Doe 3 was worried she would lose her Reserve Officers' Training Corps scholarship, and she found that administrators were either indifferent or unhelpful in helping her make up course work or register for new classes. After Jane Doe 4 was raped, administrators and professors did not assist her in rescheduling her exams, and, she said, her alleged assaulter essentially ignored the no-contact order against him. She often encountered him on campus, and administrators did not help her set up a schedule to avoid him in common areas such as the gym or dining halls as she had requested. Doe 4 then learned she might share a dormitory with her alleged rapist, which administrators had promised her would not happen. Administrators acknowledged this was an error but did not confirm with Doe 4 that he would not live on campus until days before campus move-in, the lawsuit states. Her alleged assailant was then suspended for a semester, but Doe 4 spotted him at a homecoming pep rally in October 2016. She told campus police he was blocked from campus, but the cops were unaware of this -- the complaint states that the Title IX office never told the police the man was restricted from campus and did not remove him until Doe 4 showed an officer proof of the ban on her phone. Jane Doe 5 reported her rape to campus officials in April 2015, a month shy of her graduation. She did not feel safe enough at Howard to finish her credits, and requested to do so on another campus. After she took summer classes, the university waited seven months to let her know if the credits would actually count. The alleged assailant in that case was suspended for two years, and the lawsuit states he was later criminally convicted in the District of Columbia for a separate sexual assault. Howard in July filed to dismiss the complaint, citing the fact that an institution only violates Title IX when an official is aware of, but willfully ignores, ongoing harassment. The university said once it learned of the alleged assaults, it took action: even if the women “disagree with the particulars of Howard’s response, Howard did not subject plaintiffs to intentional gender discrimination,” it wrote in the motion to dismiss. Black Colleges and Sex Assaults Howard is a prominent historically black college, but some say the issues there reflect broader problems for HBCUs. One challenge at these institutions is that most lack sufficient resources for all kinds of needs, including investigating sex assault accusations. Such scant resources can result in little investment into combating sexual violence, said Venkayla Haynes, a survivor and a representative of advocacy group Know Your IX. She said HBCUs are also very focused on their images, fearful that reports about sex assaults could hurt them. Already, too, black men and women are often disproportionally criminalized, so some survivors are hesitant to report and reinforce that image, she said. Haynes, also a regional adviser for the It’s on Us campaign launched by the Obama White House, said she has dealt with many HBCUs that simply disregard issues of sexual violence. She said she’s sat with victims while they tell their stories to administrators but that they’re never officially recorded. But just blaming the historically black institutions for deficiencies in sexual assault reports is unfair, said Felecia Commodore, assistant professor of higher education at Old Dominion University, who studies HBCU leadership and governance. Many other institutions have permitted serial offenders to remain on campus, she said. What tends to happen is when a predominately white institution is found to have dealt with a report of sexual assault poorly, it's treated as an institutional issue only. When an HBCU does, it's characterized inevitably as an issue among all of them, and thus a racial problem, Commodore said. Black students, particularly black women, face unique challenges in reporting. HBCUs promote a "family atmosphere" and sometimes victims will struggle to tell someone when they know their attacker well, Commodore said. Black women often fear, because of stereotypes, being cast as hypersexualized, and some believe they won't be taken seriously, she said. "I think it’s really important that we take seriously when any student comes forward saying they’ve been sexually assaulted," Commodore said. "In the case of HBCUs, I think there is a tendency to underreport, and we need to take seriously supporting [survivors] and making an environment where they don’t feel like they have betrayed people." HBCUs have not always accomplished this, though. Recently, signs appeared on the campuses of both Spelman College and Morehouse College, both members of the Atlanta University Center Consortium, along with Clark Atlanta University. They accused the colleges of “protecting” rapists. The Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel at Morehouse was spray-painted with “Practice what you preach Morehouse [and] end rape culture.” Alongside this, a Twitter account, @WeKnowWhatYouDid, was opened, using the hashtag #weknowwhatyoudid and posting the names of alleged perpetrators, identifying some as serial rapists. While some HBCUs claim to support programs to curtail sexual violence, they are not always realized, though they are advertised publicly, said Haynes of Know Your IX -- Howard promotes such resources on its website. “But the real change comes when a survivor reports and is actually being taken care of in the way they should,” Haynes said. |
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| Quasimodo | Dec 7 2017, 07:30 AM Post #5 |
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I'm glad that the actual facts about the faux prosecution of the lax players appears to have thoroughly seeped into the public mind... Congrats to all those (bloggers, film makers, columnists) who helped make this possible. Edited by Quasimodo, Dec 7 2017, 07:31 AM.
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| Quasimodo | Dec 7 2017, 11:53 AM Post #6 |
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The Innocence Project is out today with a fundraiser: "How do we prevent the next wrongful arrest?" "How do we prevent the next forced guilty plea?" "How do we prevent the next wrongful conviction?" All the while I thought the reason the IP didn't intervene in the lax case was because it ONLY handled cases after there were convictions. I guess they really are interested in preventing wrongful arrests, also. And forced guilty pleas. Too bad that wasn't their stance a decade ago... |
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| abb | Dec 7 2017, 07:15 PM Post #7 |
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https://academicwonderland.com/2017/12/07/possible-win-for-accused-student-in-6th-circuit/ Possible Win for Accused Student in 6th Circuit December 7, 2017 KC Johnson This afternoon, campus due process returned to the 6th Circuit, for the fourth oral argument on the issue (and the second in the last 10 days) since issuance of the Dear Colleague letter. The outcome of the case is hard to predict, because two of the three judges on the panel said very little during the hearing. But it seems highly likely that the third judge—Amul Thapar, a Trump nominee, who at one point in the hearing said that the district judge who dismissed the complaint had “erred”—will vote in favor of the accused student. The facts of the case, which originated from Denison University, were unusually strong for the accused student. Even the district judge who dismissed the complaint, Michael Watson (a Bush II nominee) conceded that “one could plausibly conclude that [the accuser] was not incapacitated the night on which she and [the accused student] engaged in sexual activity and that she consented to that activity.” And even Denison conceded that its initial handling of the case was procedurally improper—although the school found the accused student guilty a second time. The accuser’s original claim was that another Denison student—nicknamed “Man Bun”—had given her a date rape drug at a February 2015 fraternity party. (The record is silent on whether Man Bun was ever charged, much less disciplined, and Denison’s lawyer conceded that she didn’t know his fate.) But the accused student didn’t even attend the party. He texted the accuser that evening, she responded favorably, and she voluntarily came to his room. The two had sex. The allegation against the accused student came two months later—after the accuser publicly claimed Man Bun had drugged her, and after Man Bun (allegedly) harassed her in response. And it came despite text messages showing the accuser had voluntarily come to the accused student’s room, and contemporaneous witnesses who said that she wasn’t incapacitated, as she subsequently claimed. Judge Watson found no plausible evidence of gender bias, and dismissed the Title IX claim. This was an unusual oral argument because virtually all the questioning came from Judge Thapar. The only other panel member present, Judge Eugene Siler (a Bush I nominee), asked only three questions, two of which were generic (he wanted each lawyer to identify their strongest case). The third panelist, Judge Helene White (a Clinton nominee) appeared by phone, and asked only one question—favorable to Denison. Both this case and last week’s Miami case provided the opportunity for the 6th Circuit to adopt the 2nd Circuit’s Columbia argument for Title IX pleading standard. The Miami panel demonstrated no interest in this topic, and nearly all the discussion focused on the specific facts of the case and questions of procedural due process. The Denison panel—or, at least Judge Thapar—seemed more interested. In questions to the accused student’s lawyer, Eric Rosenberg, he expressed strong skepticism that evidence existed to sustain either a hostile environment or selective enforcement Title IX claim against Denison, and made clear that the only claim he considered potentially viable was one based on erroneous outcome. Denison’s lawyer, Natalie McLaughlin, got off to a difficult start and never really recovered. She opened by trying to argue how difficult it is for colleges to adjudicate sexual assault complaints, and claimed they’re sued by both sides. Judge Thapar wasn’t interested, and noted that however difficult the process, colleges can’t discriminate. He also repeatedly noted that at this stage of the process, the court is supposed to construe facts in favor of the plaintiff. Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. It was in this context that Thapar expressed his belief that the district court “erred”—clearly not a good sign for the university. Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. The heart of the oral argument revolved around an off-the-record statement by Kristan Hausman, the chair of the Denison disciplinary panel, that her fellow panelists needed to weigh the “future of 1000 girls” as they adjudicated the case. Judge Thapar pressed McLaughlin on how that statement—allegedly made before Hausman found the accused student guilty—couldn’t indicate bias. He repeatedly wondered whether dismissal would be appropriate if, in a case involving a student of color, a disciplinary panelist had told her colleagues that they needed to weigh “the future of 1000 whites” as they adjudicated. For instance, what if the accused student were a Black Lives Matter activist? Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. Or an Asian-American? Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. McLaughlin initially tried to parry the questions by noting that the particulars of sexual assault meant that the disciplinary committee could appropriately consider such matters, and worry about how finding the accused student not responsible would threaten the community. Judge Thapar was incredulous: “How can that be?,” he wondered. Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. And when McLaughlin attempted to move on, Thapar jumped back in, to point out that such an argument seemed to all but admit Denison was OK with going after accused males. Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. At that point, McLaughlin tried a new argument, suggesting that even if Hausman were biased, other members of the disciplinary panel weren’t. Thapar wasn’t buying it—and, critically, it seemed as if Judge Siler (in his only substantive comment of the day) wasn’t, either. Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. Judge White asked only one question, a seeming effort to rationalize the Hausman statement. McLaughlin eagerly responded. She was a bit more hesitant in answering Judge Siler’s generic question, conceding that perhaps the Columbia case was relevant to the outcome. Audio Player 00:00 00:00 Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. Based solely on the oral arguments, the likeliest outcome here is a 2-1 victory for the accused student, stressing that the district court made improper inferences in dismissing the case, though Judge Siler’s general reticence makes him a little difficult to read. |
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