Aaron Kunin, a literature professor at Pomona College, is writing a book titled "Weird at My School" based on his experiences at the institution. The narrative delves into his tenure as the English department chair during 2018-2019, highlighting a unique working environment characterized by intolerance, mistrust, and self-censorship. Kunin emphasizes the department's substantial but loosely monitored financial resources, creating opportunities for misuse. Conflicts over ideas typical in liberal arts colleges are noted, with a distinct focus on the financial dynamics within the department.
Kunin shares a personal experience of being accused of discrimination and retaliation, undergoing legal proceedings that ultimately favored him. He expresses gratitude to his attorneys, Mark Hathaway and Jenna Parker, and Zach Greenberg for assistance in finding legal representation. Kunin plans to use colleagues' own words, extracted from emails, to depict their characters and conduct. Despite acknowledging the eccentricities of academia, he expresses a mixture of affection and contempt for his colleagues, reflecting on the peculiar nature of his role as a literature professor. The title "Weird at My School," inspired by a song by The Pixies, underscores the deviation from the norm in the academic environment. The narrative concludes with Kunin's commitment to continue posting the newsletter as long as it serves his purpose and until he has a clearer vision of the book he aims to write.
The strongest case against academic freedom is that professors are not a freedom-loving people. H. L. Mencken made this argument a century ago. Professors show by their choices that they do not love thinking and speaking freely. They have gone into the business of education, a civilizing business where they manufacture “citizens who are as nearly like all other citizens as possible.” .
Mencken had a point. Professors (I am one of them) are mainly selected from the category of people who got good grades in school. Let us hope that our grades are a mark of our intelligence, our excellent work, maybe even — if schools are sound institutions — our expertise in our fields of study. Our grades might also indicate other, darker talents and inclinations. Read the full story here.
“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.” - Thomas Sowell
Last week District Court judges nominated by Presidents Clinton and Trump denied efforts by multiple State Attorneys General (AGs), to delay implementation of the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights' (OCR) long-awaited Title IX regulations. The regulations, informed by a lengthy and robust notice-and-comment process during which OCR considered over 124,000 public comments, became effective August 14th amid escalating victim advocate cries of sex discrimination and prophecies of school indifference toward female complainants.
Families Advocating for Campus Equality (FACE), is a nonprofit formed by women, many of whom have benefited from Title IX, the landmark 1972 civil rights law that ensured equal opportunities for women in education. Having played an active role in advocating for the new regulations, FACE is confident these regulations will continue to effectuate Title IX's non-discrimination mandate by providing a meticulous, thoughtfully-designed blueprint that federally-funded schools can implement to address sex discrimination.
FACE filed amicus curiae briefs in both the NY and DC lawsuits that opposed the AGs' requested delay of the regulations' effective date. Clinton-appointed NY District Court Judge John Koeltl was first to conclude the NY AG's arguments for delay "were mostly moot and without merit.” [pp. 45-46] Citing FACE's brief, Judge Koeltl recognized that, absent the rules, "many [respondents] may have faced sexual discrimination in recipients’ current grievance procedures." [Id.] DC District Court Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump nominee, issued his ruling just three days later, citing with approval Judge Koeltl's opinion [e.g., p. 29], and finding the 14 state AG plaintiffs had “not established a likelihood of success on their claims." [p. 1]
FACE is confident the regulations will counteract the sex discriminatory impact of two decades of legally dubious OCR 'guidance' documents such as the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter ('11 DCL). This 'guidance' encouraged. and even required, blatantly unfair treatment of the nearly 98% of respondents who are men through policies that hindered their ability to defend themselves, subjugated their due process rights to those of the complainant ['11 DCL, p. 12], increased the likelihood they'd be found guilty, and threatened schools' noncompliance with loss of federal funding ['11 DCL, p. 16]. The resulting abject unfairness of many schools' processes provoked over 650 respondent lawsuits in which an increasing majority of courts have ruled in their favor.
CONCLUSION: As Judge Koeltl explained, the regulations will "benefit both complainants and respondents by providing procedural guidance for grievance procedures," and promising complainants "greater assurance" that decisions "will not be overturned because the process did not comply with due process.”
University dean described professor’s actions as an “abuse of power” — but professor followed UCLA’s own policies
FIRE calls for professor’s reinstatement as 20,000 sign petition demanding his firing . Read more here.
The Office for Civil Rights' (OCR) Center for Outreach, Prevention, Education, and Non-discrimination (OPEN Center) today launched a short webinar entitled “OCR 100: An Introduction to Federal Civil Rights Protections in Education.” In addition to providing a general introduction to OCR, the webinar describes the six federal civil rights laws enforced by OCR, provides examples of prohibited discrimination under each, and offers a brief overview of OCR’s complaint process.
OCR 100: An Introduction to Federal Civil Rights Protections in Education
"In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education set tough new standards for how schools should handle cases of sexual misconduct on campus under Title IX. Despite requiring schools to address these cases more promptly than ever before, some alleged victims say the investigations have made matters worse, and many of the accused claim they're being denied due process. Now, the Trump administration has offered a new set of guidelines. Will that fix the problems?”
California’s Saddleback College opened two Title IX investigations against [Marcus Knight] for a fist bump and selfie that two female students described as sexual harassment. His mother Aurora accused the college of multiple due-process violations and said the allegations weren’t even physically possible for her son, and crowdfunded to hire an attorney.
That effort has finally borne fruit. The Knights are suing Saddleback College, according to PJ Media reporter Toni Airaksinen, a former College Fix writer.
While the college lifted Marcus’s suspension before his hearing, the Title IX violations remain on his record and he remains banned from school activities unless accompanied by his mother or a special-needs aide.
The lawsuit, filed by high-profile California Title IX litigator Mark Hathaway, accuses Title IX officer Juan Avalos of denying Marcus basic due-process protections. They include judging him using evidence “never before provided” to the student and denying him the right to question “the complainant or adverse witnesses” before neutral fact-finders in a “live evidentiary hearing.”
Article by Greg Piper, Read more at The College Fix.
Other articles regarding Marcus’ case:
After a trial judge seemed to favor Boston College in a due-process lawsuit brought by a student accused of sexual assault, the student came out victorious Monday in his jury trial.
The jury awarded “John Doe” more than $100,000, according to the verdict form: just under $25,000 for lost tuition the semester of the disputed incident, and about $77,600 for lost income from a “set back” of one year from his planned start to law school.
An adjudication panel at the private college had struggled to reach a verdict in the proceeding against Doe, leading a senior administrator to discourage the panel from reaching “no finding.”
…
In the conclusion of their argument, in case the jury ruled in favor of Doe, college lawyers argued there was no economic harm done to Doe since he came back to school and finished his degree.
The verdict shows the new danger for colleges in facing juries, one expert told Inside Higher Ed.
Peter Lake, director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University, noted the steep jury award against Oberlin College for defaming a local bakery.
“Jury attitude has shifted, and it’s not going to be lost on people that the political dialogue of the day is clearly having an influence in the courtroom,” he said.
Article by Lexi Lonas Read more at The College Fix
Attorney Mark Hathaway is suing the UC system on behalf of all students disciplined for sexual harassment and sexual violence based on the UC’s 2015 sexual harassment and sexual violence policy.
The class-action lawsuit, which was filed in Alameda County, could include more than 500 cases, including 142 rape and sex offenses from UC Berkeley, according to court documents. It comes in response to an appellate court ruling from March that mandated cross-examination and rights to hearings in higher education environments, which led the UC to change its sexual harassment and sexual violence policy. The lawsuit alleges that the policies in place before this change denied due process to the accused and that the change in policy validates the claim that the previous policy was allegedly unfair.
“The claims arise from the failure of Respondent to implement fair policies that protect the Due Process rights of students disciplined for sexual misconduct,” Hathaway said in the lawsuit.
The original petitioner, referred to as John Doe to preserve privacy, was a former doctoral student at UCLA who was accused of stalking another student and sexually harassing them on multiple occasions. Doe was eventually suspended for two years after an investigation. Doe appealed the decision, citing “procedural error,” and claimed the university had reached “an unreasonable decision,” had insubstantial evidence and exercised “disproportionate” disciplinary actions, according to Hathaway’s lawsuit. After a hearing was held, the charge of stalking was dropped, but the sexual harassment allegation was upheld. Doe’s sentence was changed from two years of suspension to one.
Article by Kate Finman, Read more at The Daily Californian
The Chronicle Review released a piece regarding a small group of feminist law professors at Harvard, who have criticized how college campuses across the United States have handed Title IX adjudications.
“The sex bureaucracy, in other words, pivoted from punishing sexual violence to imposing a normative vision of ideal sex, to which students are held administratively accountable.”
“Recently ... a black, autistic student with cerebral palsy was charged and found responsible for a Title IX violation for asking a woman to give him a fist bump. In a separate article on the Title IX system, Janet Halley describes an order placed on a student at an Oregon liberal arts college to avoid any contact with a female student because he reminded her of someone who had raped her, forcing him to quit his job and placing him in constant jeopardy of being punished for violating the order, despite no wrongdoing on his part even being alleged.”
Article by Wesley Yang, Read more at The Chronicle Review
“…The U.S. Department of Education announced it will fine Michigan State University (MSU) a record $4.5 million and require the University to make major changes to its Title IX procedures following its systemic failure to protect students from sexual abuse. The fine and required corrective action come after two separate investigations, one by the office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and the other by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), as directed by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
"What transpired at Michigan State was abhorrent, inexcusable, and a total and complete failure to follow the law and protect students," said Secretary DeVos. "Michigan State will now pay for its failures and will be required to make meaningful changes to how it handles Title IX cases moving forward. No future student should have to endure what too many did because concerns about Larry Nassar and William Strampel were ignored.
"I want to thank each of the survivors who came forward and shared their stories. Doing so took an incredible amount of courage. Never again should incidents of sexual misconduct on campuses—or anywhere—be swept under the rug. Students, faculty and staff must all feel empowered to come forward, know that they will be taken seriously, and know that the Department of Education will hold schools accountable.
Read more at the U.S. Department of Education
He was a University of California graduate student who said he dated another student twice — and was shocked when she accused him of stalking and sexual harassment in a Title IX complaint in 2017.
The UC system substantiated her allegations, he said, and suspended him for two years in June 2017, reducing the sanction to three months on appeal.
But the accused student is fighting back — not only for himself but for potentially hundreds of others, predominantly men, in similar straits.
This week, he filed a class-action lawsuit in Alameda County against the 10-campus UC system, arguing that the procedures used to find him and other students responsible for sexual misconduct are unfair and failed to provide them due process. A male Cal State Fullerton student filed a similar class-action lawsuit last month against the 23-campus California State University system.
“This class action seeks to clear the records of those who’ve been wrongfully punished by this deeply flawed disciplinary system,” said Mark Hathaway, a Los Angeles attorney representing the UC and Cal State Fullerton students, identified as John Does in court filings.
Article by Teresa Watanabe; Read More at the Los Angeles Times
In a groundbreaking move, the first-ever prospective class-action lawsuit that would benefit students accused of sexual assault has been filed against a university, potentially reversing the outcomes of dozens of sexual violence cases.
Experts say the suit against Michigan State University is a clever legal maneuver that takes advantage of a significant ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Judges determined in September 2018 that students accused of sexual assault, or their representatives, had a right to directly question their accuser, which legal experts said would reshape the notion of due process in these cases.
…
Andrew Miltenberg, the lawyer representing the accused student, amended the complaint this month and requested class-action status. The court would need to be persuaded that enough current or former students accused of sexual misconduct may have been denied due process to justify them as a class. Michigan State could also request that the case not be classified as a class action. A spokeswoman for the university declined to comment.
Miltenberg, a managing partner at Nesenoff & Miltenberg, said his client is not asking for monetary damages, but rather that sanctions imposed on these students be reversed.
Several Michigan State students have approached his firm about flaws they perceived in their Title IX cases and problems with the university’s processes, he said. After researching the number of potential accused students and after the Sixth Circuit decision in September, Miltenberg said he believed the class action was possible.
…
The lawsuit’s success hinges on whether the right to cross-examination was a key factor in every Title IX case at Michigan, said David A. Russcol, a lawyer specializing in Title IX at Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein in Boston. Russcol reiterated that the Sixth Circuit has been strong on issues related to due process.
“It certainly does make it plausible that with the dozens of cases at Michigan State over several years, it could raise these issues,” Russcol said.
Article by Jeremy Bauer-Wolf; Read full Article at Inside Higher Ed
The student, referred to as John Doe in a lawsuit filed over the accusation, was accused by a fellow Westmont student, referred to in court documents as Jane Roe. Jane gave varying accounts of the night in question to her friends and roommates, and Westmont chose to use only the testimony that corroborated her account and made John look like a rapist.
Associate Justice Martin Tangeman wrote the ruling, with which all three appellate judges agreed, that claimed Westmont failed to follow its own policies when adjudicating Jane’s claims.
…
Despite her roommates referring to her as a “compulsive liar,” Westmont found John responsible. Cleek didn’t even interview MH, MW, or others Doe requested. Westmont also “withheld its notes concerning panel questions and witness responses,” a trial court earlier ruled. This kept John from being able to question witness testimony.
Students who didn’t testify before the panel were given more credibility than those who did, which confused the appeals court. Tangeman accused Westmont of using a “seemingly arbitrary method” to determine who was credible in this case.
The College Fix reported that Westmont declined to comment on the ongoing case.
Read more at The Daily Wire, Article by Ashe Schow
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION 6
Jane Roe accused John Doe of sexual assault while the two were students at Westmont College. John Doe says he never had sex with Jane Roe, and was never alone with her that night. Westmont’s Student Conduct Panel determined that the evidence supported Jane’s accusation. It suspended John for two years.
John challenged the Panel’s decision in a petition for writ of administrative mandate. The trial court determined that Westmont did not provide John a fair hearing, and granted his petition. This appeal stems from Westmont College appealing the lower court’s judgement.
In the Court of Appeal’s decision, they contended that much of the legal landscape has and is in the process of shifting, due to “Recent cases [which] describe the contours of what a fair hearing requires where, as here, the case turns on witness credibility.” Due to these cases, “At a minimum, the college must comply with its own policies and procedures,” which must, “provide the accuses student with a hearing before a neutral adjudicatory body.” Additionally, the, “accused must be permitted to respond to the evidence against them,” and that the, “alleged victim and other critical witnesses must appear before the adjudicatory body in some form—in person, by video conference, or by some other means—so the body can observe their demeanor.” The Court recognized the risk that, “an accusing witness may suffer trauma if personally confronted by an alleged assailant at a hearing,” and contended that, “It is not necessary to place the alleged victim and the accused in the same room.”
Former University of Southern California kicker Matthew Boermeester alleged in a federal lawsuit that school administrators “committed an egregious miscarriage of justice” in proceedings that led to his expulsion in 2017.
Boermeester was expelled after Southern Cal determined he had committed domestic abuse against his girlfriend, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday.
The school issued an interim suspension of Boermeester in January 2017, days after his lawyers claim Boermeester was the victim of “what can only be described as a game of telephone gone awry.” Boermeester’s athletic scholarship was pulled and he ultimately was expelled in May 2017, despite his girlfriend Zoe Katz's repeated claims that she had never been abused by Boermeester.
Boermeester and Katz are still a couple.
…
“I want to be very clear that I have never been abused, assaulted or otherwise mistreated by Matt,” Katz said in the statement. “He is an incredible person, and I am and have been 100% behind him. Nothing happened that warranted an investigation, much less the unfair, biased and drawn out process that we have been forced to endure quietly."
Read more at USA Today, Article by A.J. Perez
As attorneys who have assisted over 150 accused students and faculty, we support the proposed regulations. We have been honored to play a part in dozens of court rulings against the University of California, the California State University, and private colleges and universities, that have set aside campus decisions because of the lack of a fair hearing and lack of Due Process. As Justice Arthur Gilbert noted recently, "When the accused does not receive a fair hearing, neither does the accuser. Fairness and due process are not difficult concepts to articulate. Students should expect a clear statement of the alleged misconduct and the campus policies or codes that were violated; a fair and prompt investigation by an unbiased investigator; an opportunity to respond to the evidence; and, present a defense to the charges, and an impartial, neutral person or panel to make the decision. The proposed regulation , 106.6 confirms that familiar and long-recognized rights under U.S. Constitution, including the First Amendment and Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, cannot be diminished when attending college or university.
…
The proposed regulations are consistent with California law, which requires live hearings with the opportunity for cross-examination and has eliminated use of the single investigator model, whereby a single individual investigates, prosecutes, and sentences the accused. (Doe v. Kegan Allee, et al (Jan. 4, 2019, B283406) __ Cal.App.5th __ .) From our perspective of working daily with students and families to protect access to higher education and the benefits it brings, the proposed regulations will have immediate and practical application.
Read More at Regulations.gov
A UC Davis student filed a petition Thursday in the Alameda County Superior Court to the UC Board of Regents after he was issued a two-year suspension from the UC system for allegedly violating the UC Davis Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment, or SVSH, Policy and the UC Policy on Student Conduct and Discipline. The student, who is identified by the pseudonym “John Doe,” aims to “redress the improper administrative findings and decisions made by a single investigator,” according to the petition filed by Doe and his legal team.
…
The petition challenges the legality of the SVSH policy under which Doe was investigated. Doe and his legal team argue that the policy “violates the requirements of a fair process.” The petition also says the policies and procedures “fail to afford accused students due process and fail to comply with OCR (Office for Civil Rights) guidance and Title IX.” One of the listed allegations in the petition is that the SVSH policy does not provide “an adequate, reliable, and impartial investigation” because of its use of a single-investigator model in Title IX cases at UC Davis. In a single-investigator model, one individual is responsible for investigating and making findings about the case. The petition argues that this decision should not be left to a single person acting as an “investigator, prosecutor, and fact-finder.”
Article by Maya Akkaraju, Read more at The Daily Californian
Colleges and universities across California are scrambling to revise the way they handle sexual misconduct cases after a state appellate court ruled that “fundamental fairness” requires that accused students have a right to a hearing and to cross-examine their accusers.
The decision last month came in a USC case but applies to all California public and private colleges, and prompted many to immediately halt Title IX investigations while they reshape their procedures. California State University, the University of California and USC, Claremont McKenna and Occidental colleges confirmed that they have made or soon will be making changes.
They already had been bracing to do so. In November, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos proposed controversial new federal rules that would strengthen the rights of the accused in sexual misconduct cases. The rules would apply to Title IX, which bans discrimination based on sex in educational programs and activities at schools that receive federal funding.
…
“It will protect millions of college students in California from losing their education in a process that’s arbitrary,” said Mark Hathaway, a Los Angeles attorney who has pioneered much of the litigation on behalf of accused students.
Article by Teresa Watanabe and Suhauna Hussain, Read more on the Los Angeles Times
Almost four years after USC expelled tight end Bryce Dixon because a Title IX investigation found he engaged in nonconsensual sex with a student athletic trainer, the decision was overturned by an appellate court that found the school’s process to be “fundamentally flawed.”
The three-justice panel in California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal wrote in an opinion published last week that USC “failed to provide a fair hearing” to Dixon.
“In [Dixon’s] case, he was accused of sexual misconduct for which he faced serious disciplinary sanctions, and the credibility of witnesses was central to the adjudication of the allegations against him,” the 52-page opinion said.
…
“Bryce is paying a necessary, but heavy price for the things he did,” Mark Hathaway, Dixon’s attorney, said Monday. “But it’s apparent USC didn’t take care of Bryce in any way. If it had, it’s unlikely he would’ve been in the situation he’s been in.”
Article by Nathan Fenno, Read more at the LA Times
On Tuesday, February 5, 2019, the Superior Court of Los Angeles Judge Mary Strobel ordered the Trustees of the State of California to set aside the administrative decision and sanction of expulsion in a faulty Title IX adjudication at California State University, Fresno. The Court argued that CSU Fresno, “failed to provide notice of the allegation” and that there was no evidence that Title IX personnel at CSU Fresno, “informed Petitioner of the charges regarding Roe 1 prior to or during his interview.” The Court goes on to say that the Trustees cite an amended report after the remand which was not included in their original report or investigative notes, and that, “the amended report, prepared after remand, does not cure the failure to give notice of the allegations with respect to Roe 1.”
John Doe v. The Trustees of the State of California, et al. provided by KC Johnson
A male student at California State University-Fresno was expelled after his school investigated the claims of two women who said he sexually assaulted them. Based on available evidence, a judge has called for the school to overturn its decision.
…
Superior Court Judge Mary H. Strobel found several deficiencies in CSUF’s investigation of John. The student had originally been told he was accused of sexually assaulting Jane 1 because she was too drunk to consent. That claim apparently failed, so he was punished for sexually assaulting her because she was 17 at the time of the sexual intercourse. Boele even amended the investigation complaint, without new evidence, to claim that John told her he knew Jane 1 was 17 at the time of their encounter. John says he said no such thing. Judge Strobel declared Boele’s addition of this claim, which did not exist in the original report or in any of her investigative notes, “deserves little credence.”
Because John was not told what he was actually being investigated for, he had no way to defend himself. That, plus his inability to cross-examine his accusers, the witnesses, or the evidence against him led Strobel to conclude he had not been given a fair investigation.
Article by Ashe Schow; Read More at Daily Wire
The era of serious punishments based on a single official’s investigation is over at the University of Southern California.
For the second time in less than a month, a California appeals court ruled that the private university denied a student accused of rape a fair hearing, and that the same Title IX official conducted a shoddy investigation.
The three-judge panel ordered a lower court to remove USC’s findings against “John Doe” from his record, and awarded him his costs on appeal. The university will also have to create procedures to allow accused students to cross-examine both their accusers and witnesses in some form.
…
“The decision against USC appears to be consistent with the new Title IX guidelines” proposed by the Department of Education last fall, which are open to public comment through January, Doe’s lawyer Mark Hathaway wrote in an email.
Article by Greg Piper; Read More at The College Fix
A California appellate court has set aside the expulsion of a former football player at the University of Southern California finding that a Title IX investigator had ”overlapping and conflicting” roles when looking into allegations that the player had raped a student trainer.
In an opinion published Friday (January 4, 2019), the Second District Court of Appeal found that, given the potential consequences of USC’s disciplinary proceedings, the football player, referred to in the proceedings simply as John Doe, had the right to cross-examine his accuser, Jane Roe, either directly or indirectly. USC’s procedures, the court held, left the school’s Title IX investigator to act as “investigator, prosecutor, factfinder and sentencer” in such cases and therefore deprived Doe of his right to cross-examine his accuser.
Read More at law.com
The University of Southern California will have to overturn the expulsion of a student accused of rape because the school investigators did not question central witnesses and couldn’t locate “physical evidence” to determine the validity of the allegations, a California appeals court ruled on Tuesday. The court said the accused student was denied a fair Title IX proceeding, because in addition to investigators apparently not being interested in interviewing the witnesses, their testimonies about the alleged nonconsensual anal rape were riddled with “inconsistencies” and raised questions whether the perceived blood they saw in the accuser’s apartment was actually paint.
Read the full article at Fox News
A California appeals court ordered a trial judge to set aside the expulsion of “John Doe” because the accused student was denied a fair Title IX proceeding by the private university.
In its ruling Tuesday, the appeals court said USC’s Title IX investigator should have interviewed “three central witnesses” whose testimony was marked by “inconsistencies” and disputes over whether they saw blood or paint in the accuser’s apartment.
USC violated its own rules by failing to request clothing and medical records from “Jane Roe,” said the opinion, written by Associate Justice Gail Ruderman Feuer and joined by Presiding Justice Dennis Perluss and Associate Justice John Segal.
Read more at The College Fix, Case information is available from the Court of Appeal.
In a rare federal win for male students, Tulane University has made an agreement with the federal government to stop discriminating against men by offering female-only scholarships and financial aid.
The policies were found to be in violation of Title IX, the anti-sex discrimination statute from 1972.
…
In a statement to PJ Media, Tulane spokesman Michael Strecker said the resolution was not an admission of guilt on the part of the university and that it may still provide “sex-restrictive scholarships.”
"This resolution agreement contains no admission of liability, non-compliance or wrongdoing by Tulane," Strecker said. "This resolution agreement does not impact sex-restrictive institutional scholarships. Title IX allows for sex-restrictive scholarships as long as the total pool of scholarship money is fairly distributed between men and women.”
Valois is the mother of two sons, and her efforts to end institutional discrimination against men at Tulane via scholarships is similar to an effort launched by Kursat Christoff Pekgoz, a doctoral student at the University of Southern California.
Pekgoz is also targeting specific schools, including Yale University, for providing female-only scholarships and professional assistance even though women outnumber men on college campuses and among graduates.
Article by Ashe Schow, Read more on The Daily Wire
The Santa Barbara Superior Court found the University of California Regents in contempt of court on Friday, stating that a student accused of stalking and sexual violence had been denied due process on two separate occasions and thus would be allowed to return to UC Santa Barbara.
Judge Donna D. Geck ruled the UC Regents failed to provide a fair hearing for the accused student, known in court documents as John Doe, in a Title IX investigation. UCSB expelled Doe in November 2016 after a student filed a Title IX complaint against him that June.
Read more at Daily Nexus
A California judge ordered USC to pay $111,965 in attorney fees late last month to a student accused of rape in 2016, after deeming its Title IX investigation unfair.
The request came from the student’s lawyer, Mark Hathaway. Though the University pointed out the request was filed past the deadline, the court allowed an extension, citing “reasonable mistake of law.”
The June 28 ruling followed one from December in which Hathaway accused USC of not providing defendant John Doe with a fair trial due to underlying bias by the University’s Title IX office as well as failure by the University to adhere to its own procedures, which require a “fair, thorough, reliable, neutral and impartial investigation.” Hathaway also accused USC of not allowing Doe to access all relevant information.
Read more at the Daily Journal
Mark Hathaway, a Los Angeles-area attorney who has represented accused college students in about 60 cases, said he was gratified by DeVos' move to review federal guidelines. He said he particularly hoped that accused students would have access to evidence and the ability to challenge statements by the accusers and witnesses before a finding was made.
Hathaway also said that allowing one person to act as both investigator and judge, a model used by UC and many other universities, was unfair to the accused.
He added that there was a "wide variance" in policies across California campuses. He praised UCLA, for instance, for fair handling of cases — including providing support for the accused. But he said other campuses allow "secret witnesses" and deny meaningful access to evidence before a decision is made.
Read more at The Los Angeles Times