Peter Yu was a sophomore at Vassar College last semester when he learned that a fellow student had accused him of sexual misconduct for an incident in her dorm room a year before. In a matter of days, he has said, the case was brought before a disciplinary panel of three faculty members—including one from the same department as his accuser’s father, a longtime professor at the college. Mr. Yu, who maintains that the encounter with his classmate was consensual, was found responsible and was expelled.
In June he filed a federal lawsuit against Vassar, arguing that it denied him due process throughout the disciplinary process and discriminated against him because of his sex. Among the missteps he alleges: Officials did not properly advise him of grievance policies and procedures and did not allow him legal representation at his disciplinary hearing.
Brian Harris, who was a freshman at St. Joseph’s University, in Philadelphia, last year, lodged similar claims against that institution in July.
And last month Dezmine Wells, who was expelled from Xavier University last year after being found responsible for rape, filed a federal lawsuit saying that the Ohio institution had “rushed to judgment” and conducted a “fundamentally unfair” hearing, taking less than three weeks to decide his case.
The details of the lawsuits differ, but in laying out grievances against colleges, the students share firmly held beliefs: Campus officials were hasty, withheld key evidence in hearings, and denied legal representation to the accused students. Throughout the process, the plaintiffs say, a presumption of guilt prevailed.
Among other claims, they say the institutions breached their contracts with the students by failing to follow stated policies. Mr. Harris and Mr. Yu also argue that their rights were violated under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law that bars sex discrimination at institutions that receive federal funds.
It’s unclear whether the lawsuits will gain traction, as courts often defer to colleges in legal challenges to campus disciplinary procedures. A similar case against Brown University was settled a couple of years ago.
But lawyers and advocates for students accused of sexual assault predict more such claims in years to come, as colleges investigate cases under a lower standard of proof specified by the U.S. Department of Education in 2011.
“There has to be some balance,” says Andrew T. Miltenberg, a lawyer in New York who represents Mr. Yu. Colleges may not be courts of law, Mr. Miltenberg says, but students expect the disciplinary process to be fair, affording them safeguards similar to the judicial system’s.
The stakes, he says, are high. As of June, Mr. Yu, a Chinese citizen, had not been admitted to any of the 10 colleges to which he’d applied after being expelled (two more, after learning the reason he left Vassar, told him not to bother applying). His student visa was revoked. “The potential for altering someone’s life or their future, or staining them,” Mr. Miltenberg says, “is very real.”
‘No More, No Less’
Resolving reports of rape is a challenge for colleges, but one they must take on under federal civil-rights law. Since 2011, when the Education Department issued prescriptive guidance, colleges have moved to a “more likely than not” standard of proof, lower than the “clear and convincing” bar that many institutions had been using.
In the past year, meanwhile, student activists and rape survivors have publicly faulted colleges for what they see as inadequate responses to sexual assault, prompting federal investigations.
“Schools are walking a real tightrope,” says Peter F. Lake, director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University. Beneath a very tricky process, he says, are broader questions about how far colleges should go in assuming quasi-judicial responsibilities for issues that continue to vex the criminal-justice system. “Do we really want to be tagging students with scarlet letters?” he says. “Or do we want to protect our educational mission?”
In court papers filed last month in response to Mr. Harris’s claim, St. Joseph’s argues that it was well within its rights to use the lower evidentiary standard in his case, and to limit his ability to cross-examine his accuser. Mr. Harris, who was suspended in January, has asserted that those procedures run afoul of Title IX. In fact, the university counters, they are required under the law. And internal disciplinary proceedings, St. Joseph’s says, don’t entitle Mr. Harris to the same rights as a defendant in a criminal or civil case.
“He gets what the university promises,” the institution says in court documents, “no more, no less.”
Many institutions feel hemmed in by federal requirements, says Will Creeley, director of legal and public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which opposes some federal guidance on campus sexual-assault cases, including the lower evidentiary standard. The 2011 guidance, in particular, made handling cases more difficult for colleges, he says.
“It traps them between affording students meaningful due-process protections,” says Mr. Creeley, “and complying with the new government interpretation.”
Indeed, colleges seem to struggle, often publicly, in resolving reports of rape. Consider Xavier: In early 2012, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the institution’s handling of three sexual-assault cases in which the alleged assailant was reportedly allowed to remain on the campus. In August 2012, Xavier announced that it had reached an agreement with federal officials, and would create new policies to protect victims of sexual assault and harassment.
The announcement came one day before the disciplinary hearing of Mr. Wells, a basketball player who had been accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student in her dorm room three weeks earlier. The day after the hearing, officials sent Mr. Wells a letter informing him that he had been found responsible for rape. He was expelled and is now enrolled at the University of Maryland at College Park.
Reputations at Stake
Even when colleges conduct a balanced investigation and hearing, they may still come under fire from accused students. Allegations of rape, such students say, can do tremendous harm, whether or not the accusations are found to have merit.
That has been the experience of one student at a private university on the West Coast throughout a nearly yearlong process. The student declined to give his name because he is trying to restore his public reputation.
Last fall, at a campus party, he hooked up with a female classmate. The two went back to her dorm room, where he says they engaged in consensual sexual activity. In the morning, he says, they parted amicably and did not talk again. Six weeks later, a university official told him that the female student had accused him of assaulting her in her sleep that night.
Over the next several months, the university investigated the report and eventually brought charges of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment against the male student. In July a five-person panel—a professor, a staff member, and three graduate students—heard the case. The female student, the accused student says, retracted her original statement about what happened on the night in question.
The panel cleared him of all charges. But the damage was done, he says. Two months later, he is now intent on clearing his name—and wants the university to help.
He has filed a sexual-harassment report with the university against the female student, whom he says lied repeatedly to classmates about their encounter while her allegations were being investigated. In recent weeks, he has sent letters to university officials arguing that the institution is legally bound to help him repair his reputation.
This week he agreed to mediation with the university and the female student. He’d considered legal action, but for now those plans are on hold. Instead, he is trying to persuade university officials that, as the new academic year begins, they should investigate his complaint of harassment as vigorously as they did the allegations against him.
“You have an obligation under Title IX to do that, to make sure I don’t have an intimidating or hostile environment,” he says, “where half my classmates think I’m a rapist.”
