| Blog and Media Roundup - Wednesday, December 27, 2017; News Roundup | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 27 2017, 04:26 AM (99 Views) | |
| abb | Dec 27 2017, 04:26 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2017/12/the-chronicles-top-news-stories-of-2017 6. Graduate student sues the University for allegedly mishandling rape allegations Over the summer, a graduate student filed a lawsuit against Duke for allegedly mishandling a rape allegation she reported against the live-in partner of a Women’s Center employee. The Women’s Center employee and the live-in partner are also defendants in the suit, which was originally filed in May. The complaint charges that the alleged rapist accessed the student’s information through the employee’s access privileges. The suit also alleges that the employee and the accused rapist conspired to “threaten, harass, intimidate and disparage” the graduate student in retaliation for filing the complaint and to prevent any further criminal investigation. In August, Duke University, the Women's Center employee and her partner filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit. The new motions argue that the graduate student’s original complaint fails to state any “credible claim” against the defendants, and that the complaint lacks specific details about how the defendants allegedly entered into an agreement to interfere with the sexual assault investigation. Later in the month, the graduate student filed an amended complaint, alleging that she was told by the partner about his relationship with the Women’s Center employee. According to the complaint, the partner said the employee would use her position to obstruct the report of rape and damage the graduate student’s reputation. “We will make you be quiet,” the employee’s partner allegedly said. The University, the Women’s Center employee and the partner filed motions to dismiss the amended complaint in December. |
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| abb | Dec 27 2017, 04:37 AM Post #2 |
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http://www.wral.com/former-durham-da-loses-bid-to-regain-law-license/17213703/ Former Durham DA loses bid to regain law license Posted 10:37 a.m. yesterday Raleigh, N.C. — Former Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline skipped a hearing to argue for reinstatement of her law license, so a disciplinary committee of the North Carolina State Bar ruled last week that she remain suspended. The State Bar suspended Cline's law license in 2015 for five years but determined that only two years of that would be an active suspension. Cline requested reinstatement in August, but State Bar officials said she hadn't met various conditions outlined in her suspension, such as maintaining communications with the organization, paying outstanding fees and costs of her 2015 disciplinary hearing and certifying how long she hadn't practiced law. A disciplinary committee scheduled a Dec. 20 meeting to review Cline's request and even delayed it for 35 minutes waiting for her to show up, but she never did, according to an order filed the same day. "The Motion to Reinstate License does not contain clear, cogent and convincing evidence that Cline has satisfied all conditions for a stay," the order states. "Cline did not attend the hearing and presented no evidence in support of her Motion to Reinstate License." ADVERTISING Cline hasn't practiced law since she was ousted from the District Attorney's Office in March 2012. She had been accused in a series of newspaper stories of prosecutorial misconduct, and when Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson wouldn't help her figure out why and ruled against her in several high-profile cases, she repeatedly criticized him in public, accusing him of bias and corruption. Another judge ruled that her accusations were groundless and had harmed Durham County's justice system, and he ordered her removed from office. The State Bar ruled in 2015 that Clines's criticism of Hudson violated several rules of conduct and that she also violated conduct rules when she got an investigator for her office to file bogus motions in late 2011 seeking the prison visitation records of three inmates, never told the prisoners or their lawyers about the filings and misled a judge about them. |
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| abb | Dec 27 2017, 04:41 AM Post #3 |
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http://www.dbknews.com/2017/12/27/umd-sexual-violence-investigation-office-of-civil-rights-title-ix/ U.S. Education Department opens third Title IX investigation into UMD By Jessie Campisi Published December 26 at 7:40 PM The U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights opened a third case into the University of Maryland to investigate how the campus handles sexual violence issues. The case was opened Dec. 6 and is one of 343 open investigations across 247 colleges and universities, as of Dec. 13, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. The department opened its first case into this university on Jan. 11, followed by a second case opened on March 31. Active cases exist at all but three of the 14 Big Ten institutions — Minnesota, Northwestern and Rutgers — and five of these schools have at least two open cases. University spokeswoman Katie Lawson declined to comment on the investigation, but added that "our strong commitment to a campus that is free of sexual misconduct is unchanged." As of Tuesday, the federal government has conducted 457 investigations of colleges that may not have properly responded to sexual violence cases, according to The Chronicle. So far, only 114 of those investigations have been resolved. Since this university's Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct was established in 2014, students have called for greater resources and transparency regarding sexual violence cases and how they are handled on the campus. In September 2016, the Student Government Association proposed a mandatory $34 student fee to help fund the office, which OCRSM Director Catherine Carroll has called underfunded and understaffed, but the proposal was withdrawn after this university announced it would fund six new campus positions to address sexual misconduct. This university aims to resolve sexual misconduct cases within 60 business days, but the process often takes twice as long. Nationally, Title IX complaints frequently take more than a year to be resolved, according to FiveThirtyEight. In May, university President Wallace Loh announced he'd approved the recommendations of the Joint President/Senate Sexual Assault Prevention Task Force — a 16-member group of faculty, staff and students — and said he would implement the task force's guidelines, including mandatory in-person training for incoming students, beginning summer 2017. Between the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years, sexual misconduct reports, complaints and investigations all increased significantly, according to the 2015-16 Student Sexual Misconduct Report. Carroll was recently reassigned from reporting to Loh's chief of staff to the school's general counsel, a move Loh said in September was meant to ease the reporting process. During each of the two academic years that followed the OCRSM's creation, a record number of students were expelled for sexual assault. This university also faces a $5 million lawsuit from a former student, who alleges he was wrongfully expelled after an investigation found him responsible for sexually assaulting a woman in on-campus housing in 2014. In September, Education Secretary Betsy Devos rescinded her department's Obama-era guidelines for campus sexual assault investigations. While universities were previously told to use a "preponderance of evidence" standard, they can now choose to use the "clear and convincing evidence" standard, which requires more certainty and is thus harder to meet. |
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| abb | Dec 27 2017, 04:44 AM Post #4 |
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http://whnt.com/2017/12/26/former-una-professor-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-student-files-financial-claim-against-university-seeking-millions/ Former UNA professor accused of sexually assaulting student files financial claim against university, seeking millions Posted 4:50 pm, December 26, 2017, by Carter Watkins, Updated at 10:46PM, December 26, 2017 FLORENCE, Ala. – A former University of North Alabama professor named in a civil lawsuit which claims he sexually assaulted a student, is now filing a claim against the university. David Dickerson is claiming the university denied his due process and slandered him in local and national media. His claim has been filed outside of the traditional courts; the Alabama Board of Adjustment will handle the filing by Dickerson, which is asking for upwards of $7 million. In August, a former UNA student identified as Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against the university saying they mishandled sexual assault accusations. In summary, the lawsuit states David Dickerson forced himself on Jane Doe while on a school-sponsored trip to Orlando in November 2015. Shortly after the civil lawsuit was made public, the university started an internal investigation found Dickerson violated school policy and was removed from the classroom and campus. No criminal charges have been filed. Earlier this month, Dickerson filed a 200-page financial claim against the University of North Alabama. Dickerson claims the university owes him both past and future wages because they failed to give him due process. He is also asking for wages he would earn for retirement, health insurance, and supplemental income. Those calculations added up to $7 million in the filing. Dickerson is also making a claim the university slandered his name in the news media. Stating in the claim, “UNA’s resulting guilty conviction of the plaintiff in their press release has labeled and defamed the plaintiff.” It went on to say the release hurt Dickerson’s professional reputation and denied him the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The University of North Alabama has 30-days to respond to the claims made to the Board of Adjustment; at which point a hearing will be set for the financial claims. A four-person panel makes up the Alabama Board of Adjustment; they include the State Finance Director, the State Treasurer, Secretary of State, and State Auditor. |
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| Quasimodo | Dec 27 2017, 07:57 AM Post #5 |
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Nah, not those nice people at the women's center...(sarc/off) (and if that is the mindset, then imagine the mindset towards "privileged white male athletes" accused of rape.) |
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| abb | Dec 27 2017, 09:36 AM Post #6 |
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https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/lawsuit-by-expelled-oberlin-male-student-sexual-assault-hearing-process-rigged-100-conviction-rate/ Lawsuit by expelled Oberlin College male student: Sexual assault hearing process rigged, 100% conviction rate Posted by William A. Jacobson Tuesday, December 26, 2017 at 9:30pm Oberlin College is suffering financially and in enrollment after several years of negative publicity regarding racial, gender, anti-Semitic and social justice activism on campus. I documented that history in September 2017, Radical fallout: Oberlin College enrollment drops, causing financial problems. Those financial and enrollment problems also more recently received attention at Inside Higher Ed. Since September, the publicity has only grown worse for Oberlin. It is embroiled in a bitter town-gown battle with a local bakery targeted by Oberlin students, faculty and administrators for alleged racial profiling of three black students arrested for shoplifting. Those arrests led to protests and a boycott against the bakery that continue despite the three students having pleaded guilty. The bakery has filed a lawsuit against Oberlin and Meredith Raimondo, Vice President and Dean of Students. The lawsuit received national media attention, and I covered Oberlin’s awkward pushback in Oberlin College lashes out at Gibson’s Bakery, portrays itself as victim. Additionally, an Oberlin professor recently resigned, according to the student newspaper, “amid multiple accusations of sexual misconduct toward students. One such former student has recently filed a Title IX report against him.” Now there is a another problem. A male student who was expelled from campus in October 2016 for alleged sexual assault has filed a federal lawsuit against Oberlin. Though the lawsuit was filed in June 2017, it has not received any publicity. Yet the lawsuit contains allegations which, if proven, reflect that Oberlin’s system for adjudicating sexual assault accusations was fundamentally biased against males, at least during the 2015-2016 academic year. This is a problem at other campuses we have covered dozens of times, the so-called kangaroo courts which serve as rubber stamps under pressure from Obama Education Department Office of Civil rights guidance. It’s a pressure that Betsy DeVos is starting to roll back in favor of protecting due process rights of the accused. The following documents in John Doe v. Oberlin College, filed in the Northern District of Ohio, are referenced below: Complaint (pdf.) [also embedded at bottom of this post] Motion to Dismiss and supporting Memorandum of Law (pdf.) Opposition to Motion to Dismiss (pdf.) Reply in Support of Motion to Dismiss (pdf.) Plaintiff’s counsel declined to comment on the lawsuit. Oberlin’s counsel did not respond to a request to comment. The Encounter The details of the sexual encounter and recriminations are all too familiar to anyone who has read the complaints being filed around the country regarding higher education sexual assault adjudications. According to the Complaint, the encounter started as consensual by everyone’s account, including sexual intercourse. There were text messages and other evidence that at least at the start, both parties were on board. At some point, the female asked for intercourse to stop because she was experiencing physical discomfort from the intercourse, and the male stopped. At that point the male requested that the female perform oral sex on him, and she did. The alleged violation of the campus code took place only on the issue of consent to oral sex, not the preceding intercourse and other sexual relatoins. Just prior performing oral sex, the female made a comment that she was “not sober.” That comment would become the central issue as to whether the female was “incapacitated” (and therefore unable to give true consent) under the Oberlin code and whether the male reasonably should have known that. As in so many cases, the allegation of sexual assault was not made immediately, but only after a period of time. There was no claim of use of force during the female’s initial interactions with friends or interview with an investigator. At the hearing that would change, and she alleged the use of force to push her head down during oral sex. From the Complaint, the encounter was in the early morning of February 28, 2015, and when it was over: 73. ….Mr. Doe and Ms. Roe then engaged in friendly small talk as they lay on his bed, after which Ms. Roe got dressed, collected her things, and left. 74. On March 9, 2016, Ms. Roe went to Meredith Raimondo and reported Mr. Doe for sexual assault…. 109. Jane Roe told the investigator that, after leaving Mr. Doe’s room, she went to the room of a friend in the same dorm. Ms. Roe did not tell that friend that she had been assaulted. By her own testimony, she remembered telling that friend only that she was emotional and had had sex with Mr. Doe. 110. That friend testified that she received a text from Ms. Roe at about 3:00 a.m. and that Ms. Roe came to her room soon afterwards. The friend confirmed to the investigator that Ms. Roe never told her that Mr. Doe had assaulted her. She also confirmed that Ms. Doe exhibited no obvious outward signs of incapacitation, but rather seemed “intoxicated” to her, something she based only on her previous experience with Ms. Roe. 111. Specifically, this friend testified that Ms. Roe came to her room and expressed regret that she had chosen to hook up with Mr. Doe. In her words, Ms. Roe told her, “I can’t believe I was with [Mr. Doe]” and said she was “disappointed and upset that she had done something.” The friend explained to the investigator that she knew Ms. Roe had “hooked up” with Mr. Doe before and that it had been a “non-emotional connection.” 113. As the investigative report reveals, Ms. Roe would gradually increase the severity of her allegations as she retold the events of that night over the next several days. On Monday, February 29, Roe spoke to another friend about her night with Mr. Doe. She stated that she “had engaged in sexual activity with [Mr. Doe]” and that she “felt” she was “too intoxicated to consent.” This second friend did not testify that Ms. Roe claimed that Mr. Doe used any kind of force or that he pushed her head down as she performed oral sex on him. She also did not report that Ms. Roe conveyed to her any outward indications that would have indicated her level of intoxication to Mr. Doe. Here are some excerpts from the Complaint framing the legal context of the encounter in terms of consent: 6. …. The panel concluded that, when John Doe asked Jane Roe to perform oral sex on him late one night, she was too intoxicated to consent, and John Doe should have known that. Yet Oberlin, like most every school in the country, does not punish all, or even most, drunken sex. Under Oberlin’s Sexual Misconduct Policy (the “Policy”), intoxication negates consent only when it reaches a level of “incapacitation,” which the Policy defines as a state “where an individual cannot make an informed and rational decision,” is “physically helpless” or lacks “awareness of consequences.” Policy at 20-21…. 7. John Doe’s panel pointed to just a single piece of evidence to support its conclusion that Jane Roe was incapacitated—not tipsy, not just drunk, but incapacitated—when John Doe asked her to perform oral sex on him: Roe’s simple statement, “I am not sober,” which she made a minute before John Doe’s request…. 8. Yet that statement, standing alone, does not mean its speaker is incapacitated…. 9. But that statement did not occur in a vacuum. It occurred after (1) Jane Roe texted with John Doe for over 30 minutes setting up the encounter, asking if she could come to his place, all the while making just a single typo; (2) she walked to his dorm room unaided; and (3) they engaged in 45 minutes of talking, kissing, and vaginal intercourse—during which time, by Roe’s own admission, there were no external signs of her intoxication. After all of that, the panel concluded that her bare statement, “I am not sober,” should have conveyed to John Doe that Jane Roe was so drunk that she didn’t know what she was doing and wasn’t in control of herself. 100% Conviction Rate The Complaint then goes on to put the accusation against the male student in the context of a campus campaign against “rape culture” and driven by feminist ideology: 11. But on another level, that decision unfortunately comes as no surprise at all: Jane Roe was a female student accusing a male student of sexual assault at Oberlin College. And Oberlin’s regime for investigating and adjudicating claims of sexual misconduct is rife with gender bias. In the words of Meredith Raimondo, one of the Policy’s architects and its chief implementer, it was designed to be a “survivor-centered process” and is inspired by her views on feminism. Its goal, she has said, is to eliminate “rape culture,” an undefined term whose chief characteristic at Oberlin—as evidenced by faculty resource guides, Oberlin’s Counseling Center, student opinion leaders, and at least some of its Title IX adjudicators—is an unwavering commitment to treat sexual assault allegations as true, even in the face of serious doubts. 12. And that is exactly what Oberlin has done: According to its Spring 2016 Campus Climate Report, it had found every single sexual assault respondent who went through its formal resolution process during that academic year responsible on at least one charge. 13. Jane Roe levied her allegations against John Doe the same semester that report came out. It was all but inevitable that John Doe would be found responsible. The fact that the panel could find John Doe responsible only by flaunting its clear definition of “incapacitation” and ignoring the obvious problems with Jane Roe’s credibility proves that other forces were at work. John Doe was found responsible, and expelled, because the same gender bias that motivated the drafting of the Policy and its implementation on campus demanded it. The reference in the Complaint to adjudication comes from Oberlin’s own Spring 2016 Campus Climate Report, every case that went to a formal disciplinary process resulted in at least a partial finding of responsibility (emphasis added): “The Title IX Team has received and reviewed over 100 reports of potential sex-based discrimination and harassment thus far in 2015–16. Consistent with past semesters, the most commonly reported concerns include sexual harassment, sexual assault, and/or intimate partner violence between students. Most parties making reports ask for various remedies but also request that the College take no disciplinary action against nor inform the responding party about the report, which the College honors to the extent that it is possible to maintain a safe and equitable learning and working environment. About 20 percent of all reports in 2015–16 were referred to full investigation, and if appropriate, formal investigation. The threshold to move to formal process was met in around half of investigations where the responding party was subject to a College process (some investigations relate to allegations made about individuals who have graduated, left employment with the College, or cannot be identified). When the threshold [to move to formal process] was met, findings of responsibility on all charges occurred in 70 percent of processes. In the remaining processes, the responding party was found responsible for some but not all of the conduct charges….” The Complaint also details how federal pressure from the Obama administration Dept.of Education Office of Civil Rights contributed to the atmosphere fostering guilty findings: 48. Oberlin’s efforts to overhaul its sexual misconduct policy and procedures, by creating a complainant-centered process designed to combat “rape culture,” did not save Oberlin from public scrutiny of its handling of sexual misconduct claims. On November 24, 2015—just three months before the incident at the center of this lawsuit—Oberlin was notified that it was being investigated by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to determine whether it had violated Title IX in a recent sexual assault disciplinary proceeding.18 That investigation, OCR has explained, is not limited to the particular complaint that occasioned it, but is “a systemic investigation of the College’s policies, procedures, and practices with respect to its sexual harassment and sexual assault complaint process.”19 Oberlin’s status as a target of investigation was made freely available by OCR and was the focus of local media attention20 and it brought the College under intense scrutiny by OCR at the very time the College would investigate Jane Roe’s complaint. 51. The OCR investigation initiated at Oberlin in November 2015 brought Oberlin under the intense scrutiny of an Education Department that the college knew was primarily concerned with eradicating the perpetration of sexual violence by men against women. Oberlin knew that failing to appear to OCR during this investigation to be tough on sexual assault alleged by women against men risked substantial negative publicity and a loss of federal funding. This 100% conviction rate is a central factual and legal allegation in the Complaint (emphasis in original): 54. And in every single case sent through the formal process, the respondent was found responsible on at least one charge: When the threshold was met [for formal resolution], findings of responsibility on all charges occurred in 70 percent of processes. In the remaining processes, the responding party was found responsible for some but not all of the conduct charges.29 Oberlin, consistent with the “anti-rape culture” ethos instilled by the 2014 Policy, and distilled so purely by the school newspaper’s Editorial Board and the school’s Counseling Center, literally never told a complaining student, at the end of an adjudication process, “We don’t believe you.” The Oberlin employees who preside over hearings, and who judge appeals, have quite literally credited, at least partially, the allegations of every single student who came before them in the 2015-16 academic year, as of the date of this report. 55. Upon information and belief, the vast majority of the Oberlin students who bring sexual misconduct complaints are women, and the vast majority of the Oberlin students accused of sexual misconduct are men…. “Consent” Key to Finding of Responsibility John Doe was found guilty and expelled from campus on the finding that Jane Roe did not give effective consent to oral sex due to intoxication and that John Doe was on notice from the point she said she was “not sober”: 148. On October 11, 2016, Oberlin issued a decision letter notifying the parties of the outcome of the hearing. It found Mr. Doe responsible for sexual misconduct because “the preponderance of the evidence established that effective consent was not maintained for the entire sexual encounter that occurred on February 28, 2016.” 149. As that language suggests, the panel did not conclude that consent was absent for the entire encounter. 150. Rather, the panel found there was not “effective consent” for the oral sex Ms. Roe performed on Mr. Doe. 151. It concluded that, after Ms. Roe told Mr. Doe she was “not sober,” he should have known she was incapacitated—not merely intoxicated, not just drunk, but incapacitated. 152. From that moment on, “the Reporting Party was incapacitated and not capable of giving effective consent when asked to perform oral sex.” 153. Based on that statement, and “the corroborating statements of” her friends about her intoxicated state, Ms. Roe “was incapacitated and not capable of giving consent when asked to perform oral sex.” Many more details of the testimony and evidence were set forth in the Complaint. Several causes of action were asserted including (Count I) Breach of Contract for violating Oberlin’s own contractual promises as to the handling sexual assault complaints; (Count II) Breach of the Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing; (Count III) Violation of Title IX (20 U.S.C. § 1681); (Count IV) Negligence; and (Count V – Subsequently withdrawn) Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress. Motion to Dismiss Oberlin has filed a Motion to Dismiss. The standard on a motion to dismiss is that the moving party (Oberlin) argues that even if the “well-pleaded” facts alleged are true, there is no legal claim upon which relief can be granted. A motion to dismiss is not the place to dispute the facts; to the contrary, the moving party and the court must accept the facts alleged (but not the conclusions or speculation) as true and draw reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Indeed, Oberlin states in the first footnote to it’s Memorandum of Law: 1. While Oberlin strongly disagrees with many of the facts asserted by Plaintiff in his Complaint, for purposes of this Motion only, Oberlin accepts the truth of Plaintiff’s well-pleaded allegations. Thus, we don’t really get a sense from the Motion to Dismiss which of the facts will be disputed. But here is a summary from Oberlin’s Memorandum of Law setting forth the legal reasons Oberlin says there is no legal case: STATEMENT OF ISSUES I. Does Plaintiff John Doe state a claim for a violation of Title IX, 20 U.S.C. § 1681, when Plaintiff does not demonstrate that Defendant Oberlin College’s challenged conduct was motivated by sex-based discrimination? II. Does Plaintiff state a claim for breach of contract against Oberlin for expelling Plaintiff after he was found to be responsible for committing sexual assault in accordance with Oberlin’s sexual misconduct policy when Oberlin fairly administered its policy? III. Does Plaintiff state a claim for breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing when such a claim is not cognizable under Ohio law? IV. Does Plaintiff state a claim for negligence when Oberlin’s only duties to Plaintiff are set forth in its written policies and sound in contract? V. Does Plaintiff state a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress when he does not allege that he was in danger of suffering physical harm? The Motion to Dismiss focuses very heavily on the process, and how Oberlin’s process was sufficient, regardless of whether the result was correct. It is not for the Courts, Oberlin argues, to substitute their own judgment for those of the Oberlin adjudicators: Plaintiff’s Complaint asks the Court to disregard this instruction and re-adjudicate private, internal administrative disciplinary processes, the result with which Plaintiff disagrees. In short, Plaintiff wants this Court to act as a policy maker and substitute its judgment for that of Oberlin. Courts, including those in this District, consistently refuse to assume this role. This Court should do the same and dismiss Plaintiff’s Complaint in its entirety. [pg. 6] The Motion disputes that an alleged culture of pressure on sexual assault cases gives rise to a legal claim, and disputes that plaintiff has alleged enough facts to prove discrimination on the basis of sex, regardless of the statistics on conviction rate: Plaintiff offers no allegations that, if believed, would demonstrate that Oberlin would have approached the sexual assault report at issue any differently if a female student, rather than Plaintiff, had been accused of sexual misconduct. [pg. 13] Of interest, Oberlin defends its use of the “preponderance of the evidence standard”: Plaintiff claims that Oberlin failed to apply the preponderance of the evidence standard because the Hearing Panel did not have sufficient evidence to find him responsible for sexual assault. See e.g., Compl. ¶ 182. To find a student responsible for sexual misconduct under the preponderance of the evidence standard, the Hearing Panel needed to decide only whether it is “more likely than not” that Plaintiff was “responsible for the alleged violation.” Policy, at 46.12 …. Even Plaintiff’s one-sided account of Oberlin’s investigation and adjudication of Ms. Roe’s sexual misconduct report identifies a host of evidence from which the Hearing Panel could—and did—conclude that it is “more likely than not” that Plaintiff violated the Policy. See e.g., Compl. ¶¶ 121-124. …. In a footnote Oberlin notes is was required to use that standard: 12 Notably, the DOE mandates that colleges and universities use the preponderance of the evidence standard of proof in disciplinary proceedings for alleged sexual misconduct. Pierre v. Univ. of Dayton, No. 15-cv-362, 2017 WL 1134510, at *8 (S.D. Ohio Mar. 27, 2017) (citing Russlynn Ali, Dear Colleague Letter, U.S. Dept. of Educ. at 11 (Apr. 4, 2011), available at https://www2.ed.gov/print/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201104.html.) You can read the Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss in which, not surprisingly, plaintiff disputes many of the legal arguments made by Oberlin. STATEMENT OF THE ISSUES 1. Whether Oberlin breached its contract with John Doe when (among other things) it concluded, based solely on Jane Roe’s statement, “I am not sober right now,” that he should have concluded she was “incapacitated”—which Oberlin defines as being so “extremely drunk or extremely high” that she was “unable to control [her] body or no longer understand[] who [she was] with or what [she was] doing.” 2. Whether the following facts, among others, support a “minimal plausible inference of gender bias” when all reasonable inferences are drawn in their favor: • That the chief architect of Oberlin’s Sexual Misconduct Policy (the “Policy”), Meredith Raimondo, has stated that she implements it “as a feminist committed to survivor-centered processes.” • That Oberlin had come under “systemic investigation” by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) for its handling of sexual assault just three months before Doe was charged. • That Oberlin found every accused student put through its formal resolution process, all or most of whom were male, responsible for sexual misconduct in that same academic year. • That Oberlin assigned Doe an advisor who would later retweet, just two weeks after Doe’s hearing: “To survivors everywhere, we believe you.” 3. Whether it is foreseeable that private colleges will have to discipline their students and that doing so carries significant consequences to them, such that they owe their students a common law duty of care in doing so. 4. Whether Oberlin adopted an unreasonable interpretation of its Policy in denying Doe’s appeal of the severity of his sanction. Innocence Lost? Oberlin’s Reply in support of the motion to dismiss counters the Opposition on points of law, but has this very curious and significant statement: Plaintiff’s claims of innocence, however, are insufficient to survive Oberlin’s motion to dismiss when Plaintiff has failed to allege any facts upon which a reasonable fact finder could conclude that he was treated differently because of his gender…. Plaintiff was found responsible for engaging in sexual contact when it should have been clear that the other person was too intoxicated to consent. The central issue in regard to Plaintiff’s Title IX claim is whether Oberlin’s decision to find him responsible for violating its Policy resulted in a flawed outcome because of gender bias. The issue is not whether Plaintiff can point to evidence that supports his belief that he did not violate the Policy. [pg. 1] And that’s the heart of Oberlin’s defense. Even if “John Doe” was innocent of the charge, Oberlin and other colleges in that situation argue that the male student shouldn’t be vindicated in court. It may be successful, we’ll find out when the court rules. |
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9:18 AM Jul 11