http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-ucsd-male-student-20150715-story.html#page=1
Here’s the article from the LA Times. John Doe’s lawyer said he will be filing a lawsuit against UCSD, presumably seeking damages for the one year suspension. If universities start having to pay out for not giving due process to the accused, they will let the police and the criminal system handle the cases. Which is exactly what should be happening.
From Tatin’s link - “Treated terribly” doesn’t say anything - women could claim they were treated unfairly simply because they lost their suit (Mattress woman for example) or that they were “treated terribly” because they got asked questions they didn’t want to get asked or “treated terribly” because they wanted the university to “do something” right away about whomever they were accusing…these kind of quotes don’t help anyone.
But this was a huge case and will be used as precedence for sure. The Occidental case and the Michigan cases should be the next benchmark cases that would slowly put some “teeth” around these colleges and their inability to handle these things fairly.
I wonder if the biggest issue was the increase in punitive measures after John Doe appealed. If the sanction had stayed at a one quarter suspension, would the case have been decided the same way?
^^I think the outcome would have been the same - but that strange, odd, decision making on the part of the college to wack him with more suspension every time he asked for an appeal was a gigantic exclamation mark to the judge about how bizarre decisions get made and gave the college a credibility issue around everything else.
Well, the article about my work in this area is out. I’ll say that it gets more right than it gets wrong. 
http://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/this-woman-gets-students-accused-of-rape-back-into-school-fo
Hanna, great article. You come out of the article looking very good.
Congrats on your upcoming marriage.
@Hanna Thank you for doing this work!
Pretty good article, you go girl. I think this will be a period in history that will hopefully pass quickly from memory as hopefully it will for some of these kids that are impacted. Unfortunately the only way to “fix” this is to sue, because lawsuits create precedence which creates process…unfortunately our officials decided sometimes to cut down the tree without evidence of disease so to speak , but I do agree that number one should be to get these young people back into college where more often or not they really belong.
Great article @hHanna. Congrats on the upcoming nuptials – wishing you a long and happy marriage.
@Hanna excellent article. You’ve done fantastic work.
@Hanna, Terrific article! These kids are lucky to have you.
@Hanna, thank you for posting your link. We are very lucky to have you participating on these forums.
@hanna. My daughter sent me your article yesterday! I believe that universities simply are not equipped to investigate and adjudicate crimes and that the federal law does a disservice to both accusers and accused. I’m impressed by the work you are doing!
Thanks for posting Hanna. Very interesting read, including the comments.
This was my all time favorite, spit coffee on my laptop, can’t believe someone actually wrote this comment let alone thinks like this on Hanna’s article. Oh my goodness…some of the logic of these new-time feminists totally escapes me…
@hanna, really nice profile. I bet it gets you new clients.
I’ve already heard from a couple of new cases that might be interesting. One is from a woman who says she was falsely accused by her own attacker and expelled. I only have an initial story there, so we’ll see what develops (it’s not clear from the article, but I usually DO get to hear the accuser’s side, because I get the documents from the hearing and decision). I’ve had a male-male same-sex case before, but this is the first female accusee who’s contacted me.
The complicated case of Lanston Tanyi v Appalachian State University survives (at least in part) the University’s motion to dismiss. The court dismissed Tanyi’s Title IX sex discrimination claim, but “stated in no uncertain terms that public university students have constitutionally protected due process rights that universities must take into account.”
Some of Tanyi’s due process claims were dismissed, to me a bit harshly. For example, the judge dismissed Tanyi’s complaint that the university assigned Tanyi a philosophy graduate student as his defense counsel and assigned the accuser a licensed attorney.
But but several of Tanyi’s claims were allowed to move forward.
Now a second female accused has contacted me, this case stemming from a same-sex encounter. As I’ve been saying to fellow feminists, this is an issue that cuts across the usual political lines in unexpected ways. It’s not at all clear that taking accusations at face value is good for women or for the movement fighting sexual assault on campus.
There was and is a real problem where accusers are silenced. The right way to undo that problem is through neutral, expert truth-seeking, not through unfairness in the other direction. Most universities aren’t there yet.
A Virginia judge has allowed a W&L student’s Title IX discrimination lawsuit to go forward. The judge’s comments on gender bias are highly interesting.
The judge held that John Doe was not entitled to due process protections because he attended a private university and that “[T]he Student Handbook does not form a mutuality of engagement between W&L and plaintiff, and therefore does not create a contract.”
But at the same time, the judge dismissed John Doe’s claims of breach of contract and lack of due process.
This is, to me, disappointing as there were so many blatant due process violations in John Doe’s investigation and hearing. For example, one of the professors who participated on the panel had published the following works: “The Gender Conundrum and Date Rape: The Potential Significance of Dimensions of Power” and “Rape Nullification in the United States: A Cultural Conspiracy.”
However, the judge did note, “Had Plaintiff been enrolled at a public university, he would have been entitled to due process and the proceedings against him might have unfolded quite differently.”