[Updated (2/26/2016, 4:10 p.m.) with a response from Mr. Casares’s lawyer.]
Jason Casares, the former officer at the Association for Student Conduct Administration who was accused of sexually assaulting the group’s president-elect, has resigned from Indiana University at Bloomington, according to a statement from the university. In a news release, the university said Mr. Casares, who was associate dean of students, director of student ethics, and deputy Title IX coordinator there, had resigned amid an investigation.
The association’s president-elect, Jill L. Creighton, published an open letter this month alleging that she had been assaulted by Mr. Casares, her predecessor, at a conference. At the time, Mr. Casares denied the accusation to The Chronicle through his lawyer. “The allegations are completely false,” said the lawyer, Tony Paganelli, “and an investigation with an outside law firm found them to be false.”
In a statement on Friday, the lawyer reiterated Mr. Casares’s innocence and said the university had asked that the administrator resign or be fired. “Even though the quality and integrity of Jason’s work for IU have never been questioned,” the statement read, “IU had concerns for whether he could credibly preside over student sexual-assault investigations after having been very publicly accused of sexual assault himself.” It added: “Importantly, IU’s investigators did not conclude that the assault charges against Jason were valid.”
“This is a very big personal and professional risk, and I would not have done it if it were not true,” Ms. Creighton said in an interview this month. “I have absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by coming forward.”
The police in Fort Worth, Tex., where the conference was held, told the Associated Press on Friday that they were still investigating Ms. Creighton’s claims.
The university said in its statement that the 18 cases that Mr. Casares had overseen in his role as deputy Title IX coordinator there were being reviewed by an emerita faculty member.
