This case will be one to watch as the plaintiff works to survive a motion to dismiss. Here’s the latest from the Maroon:
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2017/3/10/university-moves-dismiss-doe-suit/
As well as the story about the initial complaint and the public protest that prompted it:
Is there something more to this suit than bizarre over-litigiousness?
Two disciplinary sexual assault complaints were filed against the plaintiff. After the first, there was a hearing, which dismissed the complaint as not supported by a preponderance of the evidence. The second, which came a year later, was withdrawn after the plaintiff humiliated the complainant by releasing blog posts that overwhelmingly supported the conclusion that their sexual encounter was consensual and the complainant was angry because the plaintiff had gone back to his ex-girlfriend a few weeks later. In between, however, the second complainant conducted something of a social media campaign against the plaintiff, which was obviously embarrassing to him.
So he’s suing the university for sex discrimination? Really? The only actual sanction he received was being asked to change Physics sections so he wouldn’t be in the same section as his accuser.
This doesn’t seem important to me at all.
Well, there were posters and protesters outside his theater project, basically ruining it because the woman who filed the complaints organized it. This was on university property, so they owe him a duty to complete his education without harassment.
Why should he have had to change physics sections? If she didn’t want to take the class with him, she should have changed.
“protesters outside his theater project, basically ruining it”
More importantly, outing him as a supposed rapist to everyone on campus and around the world. That’s a big injury for one student to impose on another with no university action.
Ponder dozens of students showing up to a female senior’s directorial debut with signs saying “SLUT!” “DON’T TOLERATE SLUTS” “UC ANTI SLUT MOVEMENT” etc. The university would act against the ringleader. If the facts can be proven, I think there’s a good argument that the harassment was tolerated because the target was male.
While it might seem counterintuitive given the finding, I can think of a few reasons why he might have been required to change the physics lab. First it could have been something he agreed to in return for her agreeing not to appeal the finding.
For the schools that release dispositions of these cases you often see a finding of no responsibility but the accused is sent to an awareness seminar or living arrangements are altered. The finding only means the panel could not meet the burden of proof or a sufficient number of the members could not meet the PPO standard. Doesn’t necessarily mean they thought nothing happened or that it was a baseless claim. These hearings are informal so they have a lot of leeway with how they dispose of the cases.
The hearing decision would probably shed some light on their reasoning.
He could have agreed to change labs and when she continued to file complaints and organize protests against him he included being forced to change labs into his own complaint. I agree.
But why not have her change if she’s the one who wants it? I think separating the students is a good, easy solution, one that might resolve a problem without starting WWIII and doesn’t cost anything. Or, if there are three lab sections available, make both change so that no one is punished but both are equally inconvenienced. That’s what daughter’s school did with roommate disputes. The school didn’t want either roommate to ‘win’ and keep the room, so they both had to move if they couldn’t work out a dispute.
The woman in this case has sort of a vigilante justice position here. She didn’t like the school’s decision, so she took to the streets. If she wasn’t willing to accept the school’s decision,she shouldn’t have filed a complaint through the school. She used the school’s complaint process (twice) and now he’s using it against her.
Sure, but those characterizations are through your lens. I am sure she would not agree with them.
I have not read the complaint – so I really don’t know all that is being alleged. And while it should not be relevant, it doesn’t escape me that he has 2 separate charges against him by 2 different women.
The second was filed after the first one was completed in favor of the man, for an incident that happened before the one decided by the Title IX board, and was quickly dismissed (withdrawn?). I believe the women knew each other.
This seems to be a very similar situation to the Sulkowicz case at Columbia. Basically it raises the question of whether there are constraints to protesting the results of a disciplinary hearing on a college campus. I suppose the school’s policy manual could provide some guidance, but at the end of the day I think this is something the courts need to address.
But if we look beyond college campuses we see this sort of thing all the time. People get acquitted and there are protests with people calling them murderers - Casey Anthony and OJ Simpson come to mind. And their detractors did the talk show and major media circuit so it was done in the most public way possible. Casey Anthony remains in hiding because of the backlash but according to the verdict she is innocent.
Yes, but I think retaliation is more egregious than perhaps the Anthony and Simpson harassment. Retaliation which was the core of the complaints about Mattress Girl, is also the core of this complaint. She didn’t like what happened and decided to take it upon herself to make his life awful (in both cases really). I don’t know how you call that anything BUT retaliation. That, in my opinion, colleges need to stop cold in it’s tracks whether it’s an unhappy accuser or an unhappy accused. Seems like it would be easy to tell two people after the hearing that if either one of them, either one of them, does anything that even smells like retaliation they are expelled no questions asked. Most of this retaliation is very public. While retaliation in the workplace falls under EEOC, I have no idea where retaliation fits with these colleges and universities. Columbia sure turned a blind eye to the retaliation against that poor guy…will be interested to see how the Chicago situation pays out. I think the Columbia lawsuit is still on-going.
“People get acquitted and there are protests with people calling them murderers - Casey Anthony and OJ Simpson come to mind.”
Right, but I’m guessing that Casey Anthony’s co-workers aren’t holding protests against her at the office during the workday, and if they did, they would be disciplined or fired. Casey’s boss has an obligation to keep the workplace civil. More importantly, Casey’s boss can’t enforce the anti-harassment rules differently depending on the sex or race of the harassed employee. That’s what the plaintiff is alleging here.
Casey Anthony isn’t able to hold a job or even reveal herself in public and there is apparently nothing local law enforcement can do – and they have on obligation to do so. The jury acquitted but no one is going to convince me she is innocent. Am I entitled to express my view? I think so. If I had any personal connection to the case I would be adamant about doing so. Her acquittal only means the burden of proof was not met. They are wrong quite often. Are we not free to publicly criticize jury findings? The extent to which we can do so is usually governed by anti-harassment laws. They don’t appear to be helping her though.
In the Chicago case I think things are more complicated. The hyperlink embedded in the article in the OP appears to be inactive, so I haven’t read the complaint. But there was activity alleged here that could rise to level of interfering with John Doe’s right to receive an education. But if he is alleging gender discrimination then I presume he would need to show instances where the University shut down the activity when a female was on the receiving end, but failed to do so in his case. I have no idea if that has occurred. But I am going to bet that there are many, many instances on campuses where women have publicly been called sluts or worse without administrative intervention.
My own feeling is that for private colleges these sort of issues should be addressed in their policy handbooks or codes of conduct. This allows administrations to address it without getting into areas where the judiciary may be reluctant to set precedent because of applicability outside the realm of college campuses.
Yeah, that’s definitely not the case. Literally half the country vilified Simpson, and Anthony’s life is completely ruined. Very few people in the country care about these kids, and even I, writing about them on this forum, don’t know their names. The difference is unmistakable and enormous.
If 15+ students had showed up with giant slut signs to shame publicly a particular student, I would bet almost any university in the country, including the University of Chicago, would have taken action.
Yup, and there would have been all kinds of hoo-haa…but unfortunately it’s OK to call men rapists. They did it at Columbia, at Yale, at Chicago and I’m sure scads of other places. News Flash boys and girls…it’s not right to do either.
Yup, and there would have been all kinds of hoo-haa… News Flash boys and girls…it’s not right for either men or women to hurl insults.
HarvestMoon1 can express her opinion of Casey Anthony or OJ here or in a newspaper OpEd or by buying space in a newspaper. The is no connection between them that she has a special duty to these people. Someone may have a duty to remove HarvestMoon1’s post/opinion and give OJ a protected environment, say if Harvest was buying time on the radio station at the prison and the prison knew OJ would be harmed by this information being public. However, generally only the laws of slander and liable are going to govern the relationship.
This woman at UC can express her opinion of her former ‘date’ - as long as she’s not violating university policies of harassing another student or faculty, of trespass. Could a non-university community person have made these same accusations OFF campus? Probably. Could someone not connected with the university have posted it on social media without reprisal? I think so. The question is does anyone/any institution have a duty to protect either party. The man filing the complaint gets to look to the U of Chicago which had a duty to provide him a safe place to study and learn. The man could also sue the woman for slander, but it is easier to sue UC as it has deep pockets. It had the duty. His claim is that they didn’t protect him or provide a safe place to learn and they have that duty.
@roethlisberger maybe they would have taken action – I don’t know-- I have no crystal ball. But relative to this litigation what we think might have happened if men carried those signs won’t help John Doe. What might help him is to show instances where such actions directed toward a female by men were in fact shut down. That would assist him in establishing gender discrimination.
I think what one chooses to be outraged about depends very much on the individual. Should I be more outraged about what was alleged in this litigation or the T-shirts frat members at another college wore? The ones depicting a woman clad in a thong being roasted on a spit with an apple in her mouth, bruises on her side with an offensive caption. Should I be more outraged at Casey Anthony’s plight or at Charles Murray being called a “racist” and chased from another campus? Or how about the frat on move in day that hung a banner that read "drop off your daughter here for “oral -ientation?”
I don’t think we all are going to agree on what we should be most outraged about. Let the courts sort out the acceptable limits if the colleges are not going to define it in their codes of conduct.
Certainly we are all responsible for our own moral calculus. Discourse, though, is one of the factors that can shape (and even correct?) that calculus. That said, arguments about what we should be outraged about rarely end satisfactorily and are often circular. The previous disagreement in this thread about what provoked more outrage in the actual world, though, is not about opinion but about fact.
“If 15+ students had showed up with giant slut signs to shame publicly a particular student, I would bet almost any university in the country, including the University of Chicago, would have taken action.”
It’s unthinkable. We’re not on the jury, so it’s just a thought experiment, but I can’t conceive of a university tolerating this kind of display about a female student’s alleged sexual misconduct.