The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga erred in finding a student guilty of sexual misconduct based on his inability to prove he had obtained verbal consent from a woman who described her own memory of their encounter as clouded by intoxication, a state judge has ruled.
The state-court judge held that Steven R. Angle, the campus’s chancellor, had rendered an “arbitrary and capricious” decision last December in ordering the expulsion of Corey Mock, a senior.
In demanding that Mr. Mock prove he had obtained verbal consent in advance of sexual intercourse, Mr. Angle held the student to an untenable standard, partly because the campus’s code of conduct defines as consent not just verbal messages but “acts that are unmistakable in their meaning,” according to the judge, Carol L. McCoy of the chancery court in Nashville.
In addition, the judge held, Mr. Angle violated Mr. Mock’s due-process rights by interpreting the university’s code of conduct, which requires initiators of sexual activity to obtain consent, as establishing a judicial requirement that students accused of sexual misconduct prove that they had obtained consent in order to clear themselves.
That interpretation of the conduct code, the judge said in her ruling, “erroneously shifted the burden of proof onto Mr. Mock, when the ultimate burden of proving sexual assault remained on the charging party,” the university.
“Absent the tape recording of a verbal consent or other independent means to demonstrate that consent was given, the ability of the accused to prove the complaining party’s consent strains credibility and is illusory,” the judge wrote.
Widespread Attention
Students that colleges find guilty of sexual assault generally face long odds in legal challenges to such proceedings. But the new Tennessee decision joins another recent state-court ruling, in California, as evidence that they have at least some prospect of success.
In that other ruling, handed down last month, a state judge ruled that the University of California at San Diego had denied a fair hearing to a student disciplined for sexual assault by refusing to let him confront the student who had accused him.
In a time of heated national debate over how colleges handle sexual-assault charges, the Chattanooga case has attracted exceptionally widespread attention. That is partly because Molly Morris, the Chattanooga student who had accused Mr. Mock of raping her, went public with her story in a December article in the online publication Vice Sports.
The article quoted her as complaining that the campus’s administration had altered key details of her complaint to favor Mr. Mock and to essentially blame her for what had happened. She had ceased attending classes at Chattanooga and filed a Title IX sexual-discrimination complaint with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights over the university’s handling of her case.
On the other side, C.D. Mock, Corey’s father, began in December to publish a combative blog providing Corey’s side of the story and arguing that colleges trample the rights of students facing such charges. (The elder Mr. Mock was head wrestling coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when he began publishing his blog, but he was fired from that position in June.)
Blurred Accounts
As summarized in the judge’s decision, the university’s disciplinary proceedings involved sorting through conflicting accounts offered by Mr. Mock and his accuser regarding what happened between them during and after a party in March 2014.
Ms. Morris recalled drinking alcohol, but not enough to explain how intoxicated and sick she became. She later expressed suspicion that she had been drugged, but was unable to offer any proof, and failed to convince a campus hearing officer that she had been too intoxicated to give consent for sexual activity. She said she recalled being sexually penetrated in a violent manner, but could not remember whether she had given verbal consent. Mr. Mock said she had not given verbal consent but had consented through nonverbal actions.
In an initial decision, rendered in August 2014, the campus hearing officer dismissed the charges against Mr. Mock, concluding that the administration had not offered a preponderance of evidence showing that Ms. Morris had been incapable of consenting to sex, and that Mr. Mock had been aware of her incapacitation.
Ms. Morris then met with Mr. Angle and persuaded the university to petition the hearing officer to reconsider, which led the officer to issue a second decision that found Mr. Mock guilty of sexual misconduct. That verdict cleared the way for his expulsion. Mr. Mock’s lawyers accused the chancellor of having pushed the hearing officer to apply a more rigorous “yes means yes” standard of consent in reconsidering the case.
Last week’s state-court ruling reinstated the hearing officer’s first decision, which had cleared Mr. Mock, and reversed Mr. Angle’s decision to expel him.
High-Profile Case
Last January the Chattanooga campus’s administration announced changes in its sexual-misconduct policy, offering a more-detailed definition of consent that still allows it to be communicated nonverbally. That same month the state judge handling Mr. Mock’s case provoked outrage on the campus by ordering the university to reinstate him for his final semester of classes, pending his appeal of his expulsion. He was not allowed, however, to continue receiving a scholarship or to return to the wrestling team, where he had been nationally ranked.
In a separate order issued last week, the judge ordered the university to award Mr. Mock his degree on Saturday, at the scheduled end of his summer-term classes. Her order gave the university leeway to revoke Mr. Mock’s degree if her decision in his favor is reversed on appeal.
Speaking on his son’s behalf, C.D. Mock said that “we are right now cautiously elated” with the judge’s decision. He added, however, that his son “has had his career taken from him” because he could not remain on the wrestling team as a senior. Corey Mock “has wanted to be a wrestling coach since he was a little boy,” his father said.
Peter Schmidt writes about affirmative action, academic labor, and issues related to academic freedom. Contact him at peter.schmidt@chronicle.com.
