Like this Rider University plaintiff, male students are increasingly claiming discrimination under Title IX.
A freshman says Rider University "blindly accepted" a female classmate's claims he sexually assaulted her in a dorm room, and expelled him last year. Now he's suing the school to clear his name. Here we go again.
All across America, universities are making a mess of sex assault cases. Victims are shortchanged by unqualified campus cops doing investigations, administrators who discourage them from pressing charges, and disciplinary panels with inadequate training that dole out mere slaps on the wrist.
But the rights of the accused are being violated, too. That seems to be the case at Rider. The Mercer County Prosecutor's office decided not to press charges after the woman dramatically changed her story, according to the lawsuit, but the university expelled the man anyway.
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He says he first met the victim and her female friend, who were drunk in the men's dormitory bathroom, when he was returning from an off-campus party in October 2015. They went with him and his male friend to a dorm room.
The victim and her friend, a witness, later told campus security there was non-consensual kissing and touching, but nothing more, and both left freely afterwards. Then the women changed their story. They told police there was forcible oral sex, and that the friend had to fight her way out of the room, leaving behind the victim.
These contradictions were never explained, according to the lawsuit, and campus security presented only the revised statements at the disciplinary hearing.
According to the plaintiff, he never had the right to freely confront his accuser, which tells you all you need to know about the outrageous violations of due process in these campus courts. He says he was never told the specific allegations against him. All questions from his lawyer had to go through the board chair, who decided whether to ask them.
The woman testified that a doctor confirmed she was sexually assaulted, but the defense says it was not allowed to ask any questions about this or see any medical records. The man was expelled without being given any explanation of how the board reached its conclusion, the lawsuit says, or even an audio recording of his own disciplinary hearing. He appealed the decision, but was denied.
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One thing the university did right, in our view, was immediately ask the woman to report her allegations to the prosecutor's office. But after prosecutors decided they didn't merit charges, how did the school convict?
Rider isn't commenting, other than to say its process is "fair, equitable and impartial." Based on the appalling record of college kangaroo courts across the country, though, we're skeptical.
Like this Rider plaintiff, male students are increasingly claiming discrimination under Title IX, the federal gender-equality statute - a perfectly valid complaint, when you consider the backstory here.
Out of concern that schools weren't taking sex assault cases seriously, the federal government issued a letter in 2011, threatening to investigate those thought to be not sufficiently zealous. It said if it found a school had violated Title IX, it might rescind federal funding.
Title IX experts say this has since led to a new problem: Universities now think the feds want them to be on the side of the victim, and if they aren't, they will be penalized. So they are trampling due process rights.
Granted, schools should have the ability to expel students they believe have committed wrongdoing, even if it doesn't meet the high standard of proof required in court. But not with these amateurish tribunals. We need to improve their policies.
New Jersey should also legally require all colleges to report every sexual assault allegation to law enforcement, including prosecutor's offices, which have sex crimes units. These are complex cases. Do we really trust campus cops who can't do forensic work, or school nurses administering rape kits?
Do we want the accused to be stripped of rights that we consider fundamental in criminal court?
A victim could still decide not to pursue charges, but felony crimes always belong in the hands of professionals. On that much, lawyers for male clients and female victims should agree.
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