Lawsuit highlights debate on university sexual misconduct

Complaint argues policies favor rights of accusers

Chicago Tribune (TNS)

CHICAGO — Northwestern University is being sued by a student who contends that the university denied him his right to due process when it concluded that he had sexually assaulted a fellow student and then kicked him out of school last year.

Filed in federal court in September, the lawsuit argues that Northwestern’s sexual misconduct policies so heavily favor accusers that respondents have little ability to defend themselves. He contends that Northwestern’s procedures denied him a fair hearing and that the punishmentruined his reputation and career prospects. Neither student is named in the lawsuit.

The case is just one of many across that nation that have put universities in the midst of a roiling debate over how to handle allegations of sexual misconduct in higher education.

Those policies fall under federal Title IX guidelines that date to 1972 and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex at institutions that receive federal funds. For years, Title IX was better known for requiring universities to balance participation rates between men and women in sports programs.

But that changed in 2011, when the Department of Education under President Barack Obama sent universities a “Dear Colleague” letter that detailed specific steps universities must take to respond to sexual misconduct allegations or risk losing federal funding.

The goal was to push universities to respond more forcefully to a problem of sexual assault on campuses that the administration said had long been neglected.

Critics, though, maintained that the prescriptions went too far in favor of the accusers and sacrificed fundamental fairness. For example, the letter required schools receiving federal funding to use the lowest standard of proof, and limits were placed on the accused’s ability to question their accusers.

Betsy DeVos, the education secretary under President Donald Trump, was among those detractors.

In September, she rolled back the Obama-era policies and announced interim rules that give universities more latitude on the standard of proof they must employ in hearings, remove fixed deadlines for completing Title IX investigations and allow schools the option to suggest informal resolutions to complaints.

Hearkening to Ms. DeVos’ concerns about protecting rights of the accused, the new guidelines also permit schools to enact an appeals process open to both the complainant and the respondent, orjust the respondent alone.

Those issues make up a big part of the lawsuit against Northwestern.

The sexual misconduct finding arose out of a March 2015 incident in which the female student, a sophomore at the time who is identified only as Jane Roe, accused the male student, a freshman identified as John Doe, of forcing her to perform oral sex. His lawyers argue that the encounter was consensual, though they acknowledge the woman abruptly ended it. Only after an acrimonious breakup, his lawyers maintain, did the woman begin to make the accusations, at first in their circle of friends.

The case landed on the desk of Northwestern’s deputy Title IX coordinator.

In January 2016, she informed the male student that her office had received a report of an incident involving him, but provided no specifics, the lawsuit states. Then in March, the Title IX investigator assigned to the case and a hearing panel found him responsible for sexual assault.

He was ordered to leave the university for a minimum of two years. The university’s appellate panel upheld the decision that May — though for different reasons — and ordered his immediate removal from campus, accordingto the lawsuit.

The lawsuit faults Northwestern’s sexual misconduct policy, which was revised in 2014, and said it denied the accused a fair hearing process.

“It eliminated any semblance of fairness toward students accused of sexual misconduct (who are overwhelmingly male), and reflected the university’s intentional, institutionalized gender bias, in which female complainants are presumed to be ‘survivors’ and ‘victims’ of sexual assault and accused males are presumed to be ‘perpetrators’ merely on the basis of the accusation,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit also alleges that Northwestern’s investigators ignored text messages that the accused provided that would have supported his assertion that the woman’s reaction to the evening had dramatically changed over time.