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Blog and Media Roundup - Thursday, December 28, 2017; News Roundup
Topic Started: Dec 28 2017, 04:40 AM (80 Views)
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http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2017/12/the-chronicles-top-news-stories-of-2017


The Chronicle's top news stories of 2017: Students, lawyers criticize student conduct process
By Staff Reports | 12/22/2017

As 2017 nears its end, The Chronicle takes a look back at its top 10 news stories from the year, now with number 4. Check back each day to see which story will be revealed next as 2018 quickly approaches.

4. Students, lawyers criticize student conduct process

Earlier this year, The Chronicle published a multi-part series on the student conduct process.

The first story followed one student who went through the process and felt she was treated unfairly. The student received an email from the Office of Student Conduct, explaining that she was under investigation for allegedly cheating on a series of public policy quizzes. After five months, she was found not responsible for cheating.

In the second story, legal experts and others who have interacted with the student conduct process brought forward problems with it.

“I’ve not encountered a process or an administration of the process in any school that is less fair than the undergraduate conduct board hearings that Duke students go through,” said Robert Ekstrand, Law School ‘98—a Durham lawyer who was involved in the lacrosse case and has worked on hundreds of disciplinary cases involving students at Duke and institutions across the country. “If I was a wrongly accused student, it is the last hearing process that I would want to have adjudicate my case."

The third story followed four more students’ negative experiences with OSC. They also discussed their concerns, including incomplete or inadequate investigations into their cases, difficulty introducing witnesses for their defense and a “guilty until proven innocent” mindset of the boards.

In the fourth story, members of Alpha Epsilon Pi shared their interaction with OSC. The fifth story heard from former panelists who expressed positive views of the process.

5. Men’s soccer player Ciaran McKenna accused of sexual assault sues Duke for allegedly violating his due process rights

The University suspended McKenna in late January after deciding that he had violated the Student Sexual Misconduct Policy. Following that, McKenna filed a lawsuit against Duke and Stephen Bryan, associate dean of students and director of the Office of Student Conduct.

According to the lawsuit, the case was originally heard by an OSC panel in July 2016, which concluded that the female student did not verbally deny consent though her actions did not give consent either. McKenna then appealed this ruling. After an appeals board concluded that the panel had not applied the correct "reasonable person" standard pursuant to Duke policy, the lawsuit said the case was supposed to be sent back to the original panel. But the player alleges Bryan set up a new panel to hear the dispute instead, and that this panel found that the female student had in fact verbally denied consent.

The player alleges in the lawsuit that Bryan violated Duke policy in setting up the second panel, especially when he alleges the first panel had partially cleared him of wrongdoing. James Coleman, John S. Bradway professor of the practice of law and faculty advisor to McKenna, testified during the hearings for the lawsuit that remanding to an entirely new panel violated the University's student conduct policy.

Tim Bounds, senior director for strategic operations, and Sue Wasiolek, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students, also testified during the hearings on the procedures for handling sexual misconduct allegations at Duke.

After days of testimony, Judge Orlando Hudson issued a ruling on a preliminary injunction Feb. 15 allowing suspended McKenna to remain at Duke.

The alleged sexual assault occurred early in the morning Nov. 14, 2015, after the alleged victim and McKenna—both first-years at the time—met at Shooters II Saloon. From there, McKenna’s account of events differ from the victim’s. McKenna says in his statement of facts in the first OSC panel that they engaged in consensual sexual acts before and after intercourse in her room. However, according to the second OSC panel’s report, the female student claimed she did not want to lose her virginity, pulled away from him before sex and said no during intercourse.
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http://citizensvoice.com/opinion/ncaa-s-lack-of-institutional-control-1.2283915

NCAA’s lack of institutional control

The Editorial Board / Published: December 28, 2017

Given the somersaults executed by the NCAA in not imposing sanctions against the University of North Carolina, it perhaps makes sense that it has sat out a scandal involving gymnastics.

The NCAA attempted but failed to kill the Penn State University football program in 2012 amid the Jerry Sandusky scandal, creating jurisdiction where it had none.

Earlier this year, incredibly, it refused to act against the worst known academic cheating scandal in NCAA history. At least 3,000 athletes had been given credit by UNC for classes that did not actually exist, thus ensuring their eligibility to compete — including in basketball, which funds the NCAA itself. The NCAA nonsensical explanation was that it couldn’t act because some of the students who received credit for imaginary classes were not athletes.

Now, the NCAA can’t seem to find the trigger in a case involving a doctor from Michigan State University who has been indicted on child pornography charges, for allegedly sexually abusing a young girl at his home and is the subject of more than 60 police complaints and three lawsuits.

One of Dr. Larry Nassar’s alleged victims is an American medal-winning Olympic gymnast. Michigan State kept him aboard even after USA Gymnastics fired him, and allowed him to practice for 16 months while he was under investigation by MSU’s own police force, based on complaints from students, including female athletes.

One of those athletes, softball player Tiffany Thomas Lopez, alleged that Nassar had molested her at least 10 times when she was a freshman. Her complaints were not taken seriously by MSU staff, she said, and she left school.

Doesn’t that describe a lack of institutional control? If it fails to act, the NCAA will enhance its reputation for being inconsistent, arbitrary and ineffective.
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-umd-title-ix-investigation-20171227-story.html


U.S. Dept. of Ed opens third investigation of University of Maryland's handling of sexual misconduct on campus
Talia Richman
12/27/17

The U.S. Department of Education has opened a third investigation into how the University of Maryland, College Park responds to reports of sexual violence on campus.

The department confirmed Wednesday that its Office for Civil Rights initiated an investigation on Dec. 6. Two other investigations were launched earlier this year.

The state’s flagship university is one of nearly 250 institutions across the country currently under investigation for possible violations of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sex.

“We plan to fully comply and assist in the review process,” university spokeswoman Katie Lawson said in a statement. “Our commitment to a campus free of sexual misconduct remains steadfast.”

The Education Department is also looking into the handling of sexual misconduct cases by other Maryland colleges, including the Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University, Mount Saint Mary’s University, Saint Mary’s College of Maryland and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Colleges across the country are grappling with how to handle complaints of sexual misconduct properly. The nonprofit National Sexual Violence Resource Center has reported that one in five female students is sexually assaulted at college.

The Trump administration has rescinded Obama-era guidelines on how universities should respond to reports of sexual assault under Title IX. New interim guidelines issued by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos allow schools to use a higher standard of evidence when considering sexual misconduct cases.

Students at College Park have been pushing the university for years to devote more resources and attention to combat sexual violence on campus. The university’s Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct has struggled to find its footing since it was established in 2014.

A record number of students — four — were expelled for sexual misconduct during the 2015-2016 academic year, according to the most recent report available from the university’s Title IX office. But the office typically took twice as long as the recommended 60 business days to resolve complaints, the report states.

The university garnered national attention last year when the Student Government Association proposed a $34 mandatory student fee to bolster funding for the Title IX office. The SGA, which argued that the office was understaffed and underfunded, eventually withdrew its fee proposal and the university approved funding to create additional staff positions within the office.

University president Wallace Loh approved a series of recommendations last spring from a task force that he convened in October 2016. The university is in the process of implementing these recommendations, which include in-person training in sexual assault prevention for all students and the creation of a centralized website to connect students with campus resources.

“To create a campus that is free from all forms of sexual misconduct is an ambitious and essential undertaking that is in the interest, and is the responsibility, of every member of our University community,” Loh said in May.
University of Maryland, Baltimore County under federal investigation for handling of alleged sexual assault

But student activists continue to push for more action, funding and transparency. Senior Cristina Johnson, president of Preventing Sexual Assault, a student group that spreads awareness about what Johnson calls an “epidemic” on campus, said the newest investigation is an indication that the university has to do more.

“They’ve been constantly saying that it’s going to get better, but to me, this is another way of showing that we need to keep putting pressure on the administration,” Johnson said. “We need to make this a priority.”
Baltimore colleges receive $750,000 to combat sexual assaults

The Education Department opened its first investigation at the College Park campus on Jan. 11, and its second on March 31. Neither of those cases has been resolved.

Other Maryland universities have been under investigation for years. Johns Hopkins’ case stretches back to 2014. The four open cases at Saint Mary’s College of Maryland all date from 2015.

It took an average of 1,469 days — more than four years — to complete Title IX investigations nationally in 2014, the department reported.

SGA president A.J. Pruitt, who was behind the student fee proposal, said he believes the university has made progress since those first two cases began.

“What I’d really like to see is that, instead of new investigations, we actually close some of the ongoing investigations,” he said. “What are the concrete things we can do to ensure we’re meeting federal policies and doing everything we should do around sexual misconduct?”

trichman@baltsun.com

twitter.com/TaliRichman
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Quasimodo

Message from the Innocence Project:

Quote:
 

25 years. 199 people exonerated. Reforms passed in all 50 states. This is the story of the Innocence Project until today.

But we’re not done. Not by a long shot. Our staff attorneys have hundreds of cases, seeking new DNA tests, challenging faulty forensics and bad eyewitness procedures. Our policy team and the Innocence Network partners will be in more than half of America’s state legislatures in 2018, working to prevent this cycle of injustice from consuming the lives of more families.


Is this something new? Relying on DNA tests? Challenging bad eyewitness procedures??


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Dec 28 2017, 04:46 AM
http://citizensvoice.com/opinion/ncaa-s-lack-of-institutional-control-1.2283915

NCAA’s lack of institutional control

The Editorial Board / Published: December 28, 2017

Given the somersaults executed by the NCAA in not imposing sanctions against the University of North Carolina, it perhaps makes sense that it has sat out a scandal involving gymnastics.

The NCAA attempted but failed to kill the Penn State University football program in 2012 amid the Jerry Sandusky scandal, creating jurisdiction where it had none.

Earlier this year, incredibly, it refused to act against the worst known academic cheating scandal in NCAA history. At least 3,000 athletes had been given credit by UNC for classes that did not actually exist, thus ensuring their eligibility to compete — including in basketball, which funds the NCAA itself. The NCAA nonsensical explanation was that it couldn’t act because some of the students who received credit for imaginary classes were not athletes.

Now, the NCAA can’t seem to find the trigger in a case involving a doctor from Michigan State University who has been indicted on child pornography charges, for allegedly sexually abusing a young girl at his home and is the subject of more than 60 police complaints and three lawsuits.

One of Dr. Larry Nassar’s alleged victims is an American medal-winning Olympic gymnast. Michigan State kept him aboard even after USA Gymnastics fired him, and allowed him to practice for 16 months while he was under investigation by MSU’s own police force, based on complaints from students, including female athletes.

One of those athletes, softball player Tiffany Thomas Lopez, alleged that Nassar had molested her at least 10 times when she was a freshman. Her complaints were not taken seriously by MSU staff, she said, and she left school.

Doesn’t that describe a lack of institutional control? If it fails to act, the NCAA will enhance its reputation for being inconsistent, arbitrary and ineffective.
...Nassar had molested her at least 10 times

It might be true, but it's hard to figure out how that could happen.
.
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