Court: Standards not met in Yale case

In hearing Khan allegations, sexual misconduct panel fell short of quasi-judicial body benchmarks

The state Supreme Court has ruled that Yale University’s procedures for hearing sexual assault accusations fall short of legal standards for a quasi-judicial body.

The opinion, which will be officially released Tuesday and which was signed by all seven justices, involves the case of Saifullah Khan, who was suspended from Yale in 2015 after a hearing by the University-wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct. He had been accused of rape by a female student who has since graduated.

Khan, an Afghan native, was acquitted in state Superior Court of rape charges in the case.

Khan, who had won reinstatement only to be suspended a second time, amid a #Metoo campaign that gathered 77,000 signatures on a petition opposing his reinstatement, sued the university.

The second action removing him from campus came after Yale Daily News reports in October 2018 that a man, not a Yale student, claimed Kahn assaulted him repeatedly, outside of Connecticut. Yale told Kahn in a letter that he was suspended and expelled from the campus because it was necessary for his “physical and emotional safety and well-being and/or the safety and well-being of the university community,” according to an appeals court decision.

Kahn’s lawsuit was dismissed, and he appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the case hinged on whether Jane Doe has qualified immunity. The federal appeals court, which found no binding state law on whether quasi-judicial immunity extends to proceedings by nongovernmental entities like Yale, asked the state High court to resolve the question.

The Supreme Court took up the case to decide the issue.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, that the Yale committee did not meet the standards of a quasi-judicial body, means that Doe does not have qualified immunity, the court wrote.

Among the standards that the committee did not meet, the court said, were that witnesses did not

testify under oath, that Khan’s attorney could not question Doe, that Khan was not permitted in the hearing room while Doe gave her statement, and that official notes taken of the meeting were inadequate.

Those issues meant Doe did not have absolute immunity, the court ruled. It also said her action deprived her of qualified immunity, at least at this stage of the legal process. Khan wants to press a defamation suit against Doe.

The court noted that “the disciplinary proceeding was specifically authorized by statute (§ 10a-55m (b)), pursuant to which each institution of higher education in Connecticut is required to adopt policies regarding sexual assault, including policies providing for an investigation and disciplinary proceedings for allegations of sexual violence, and policies requiring that, if a disciplinary hearing is held, certain procedures be followed.”

But according to the court’s opinion, “witnesses in the UWC proceeding did not testify under oath, provide sworn statements, or certify to the truth of their statements. The UWC’S only protection against false statements is the threat that the ‘failure to provide truthful information … may result in a recommendation for a more severe penalty or a referral for discipline.’”

The court also ruled, “the UWC proceeding did not permit live, realtime cross-examination of witnesses or any reasonable opportunity for parties to confront witnesses. In fact, neither Khan nor his counsel was permitted to be in the hearing room when Doe was questioned.”

The opinion states that the UWC’S procedures gave the justices “no assurance that Khan had a meaningful opportunity to cross-examine or otherwise confront Doe in real time.”

Also, while Khan and Doe could submit questions to the hearing panel, “the panel had sole discretion to reject the questions or not to ask them. Thus, the UWC procedures hampered Khan’s ability to ask legitimate questions or to sequence questions in a way he believed would test the veracity of Doe’s testimony at the hearing,” the court wrote.

There were also “no standards” regarding whether suggested witnesses would be called or interviewed and the parties could not call their own witnesses, the ruling stated.

“Under these circumstances, a person in Khan’s position is left to rely on the grace of the panel to aid in his defense by presenting the in-person testimony of favorable witnesses,” the justices wrote. “As a result, Yale’s UWC policy does not comport with the protections typical of quasi-judicial proceedings.”

UWC rules also did not allow lawyers to submit documents on behalf of their clients or to speak for the parties. “These restrictions effectively rendered counsel irrelevant, relegating Khan’s attorney to the status of the proverbial potted plant,” the court wrote.

“The active assistance of counsel is especially important in settings like the one at issue, when the accused or accuser may lack experience with self-advocacy or representing his or her interests in an adversarial process that involves significant consequences for the individual parties,” the ruling said.

“Finally, the UWC proceeding limited a party’s ability to seek review of the UWC panel’s decision because it failed to establish an adequate record of the proceedings,” the justices wrote.

“Although the UWC procedures require that the secretary of the UWC keep minutes from the meeting and a record of all the actions and reports filed, they explicitly provide that ‘the minutes do not record statements, testimony, or questions’ …

T h i s “s e v e r e l y constrained” Khan’s ability to appeal the UWC’S decision, the justices wrote. “That restriction was especially prejudicial in light of the fact that his counsel was not permitted to object when UWC panel members allegedly assumed facts not in evidence and otherwise violated core evidentiary principles,” they said.

Because of these issues, the Supreme Court ruled that the UWC hearing was not quasi-judicial and that Doe did not have absolute immunity.

Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart said the university would not comment on the case.

Neither Khan’s lawyer, Norm Pattis, nor Jane Doe’s, James Sconzo, returned calls seeking comment.