Duke University and would-be graduate Lewis McLeod are on their way toward settling a long-running lawsuit that alleges the university mishandled a 2014 sex-misconduct disciplinary hearing. Lawyers from both sides conferred Monday, striking a deal shortly before 3:45 p.m. “I’m pleased to report that we have able to resolve our differences, among all the parties, to the point that we do not require court involvement any further,” Duke lawyer Dan Hartzog Sr. told Superior Court Judge Henry Hight. “Great, thank you,” Hight responded. The prospective settlement still requires a couple of weeks’ worth of paperwork before it’s final. Hartzog and McLeod’s lawyer, Rachel Hitch, declined to discuss t

Duke settled a legal dispute Monday about its student conduct process that's been up in the air for almost four years, the University confirmed. Lewis McLeod enrolled at Duke as part of the Class of 2014, but was accused of sexually assaulting a female first-year student in November 2013. After meeting at Shooters II Saloon, the female first-year alleged McLeod took her to a fraternity house and sexually assaulted her. In February 2014, an Undergraduate Conduct Board hearing found him responsible for sexual misconduct, and the appellate hearing in April 2014 reached the same conclusion. McLeod was subsequently expelled from the University. In May 2014, McLeod filed a lawsuit, alleging that D

The details of that night in New Haven were not all that different from many others. There was the off-campus party. The alcohol. The attempts the next morning to make sense of the memories that weren’t there, and the used condoms that were. What was different was what came next: the report to the police. The prosecutors pressing charges. And now, the trial. When Saifullah Khan, 25, stands trial in New Haven this week, accused of raping a fellow Yale student on Halloween of 2015, he will join the ranks of a small, unusual group: men who are accused of sexual assault on campus, and who then hear those accusations aired in a court of law. There is no log of how many campus rape cases go to tri

The Obama administration was notable for its disregard of the rule of law in its avid pursuit of politically desirable outcomes. Law professor David Bernstein’s book on that subject, Lawless examined many such instances (see my review here) including the demand by Department of Education officials that colleges and universities scrap due process for accused male students in pursuit of high numbers of punishments for sexual assault. Now some of the schools that eagerly complied with the Department’s abuse of Title IX (the 1972 law that was written to keep schools that received federal funds from discriminating against women applicants) are feeling strong repercussions, as students use our jus

In 2011, every college and university in the United States received a “guidance letter” from the Obama administration’s Department of Education declaring that all colleges and universities across the land, from Brown to Berkeley, were required to immediately amend their policies and procedures for responding to any claims of sexual harassment and sexual assault on their respective campuses. The DOE’s mandated change? Rather than being permitted to follow the long-standing practice of exclusively turning over all claims of criminal sexual conduct to the local police, all institutions of higher education were now required by law to convene panels of faculty, staff and students to investigate a

Duke University could be on the verge of its second major court loss in a month in cases that challenge how it deals with discipline of students accused of sexual misconduct. Superior Court Judge Henry Hight has to decide soon on whether a jury should hear would-be Duke graduate Lewis McLeod’s claims that the university broke a contract in 2014 by trying to expel him after a campus hearing panel decided he forced himself on a female first-year student. Duke wants the case dismissed, but Hight this week pressed the university’s lawyers to explain how the campus disciplinary process can protect “the rights of the accused” absent a contract between the institution and its students that guarante

Guess who is in agreement that the Obama administration Education Department Title IX “guidance” needs to be changed? Two women who have raised families, done distinguished work in the nonprofit sector and now hold important jobs in the federal government: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Here is Justice Ginsburg, as interviewed by Jeffrey Rosen at the National Constitution Center, as transcribed by Reason magazine: Jeffrey Rosen: What about due process for the accused? Justice Ginsburg: The person who is accused has a right to defend herself or himself, and we certainly should not lose sight of that. Recognizing that these are complaints that s

It may finally be payback time for one student at James Madison University. In a case involving a dubious sexual-assault claim and a proceeding reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, “John Doe,” the accused male student, received a five-year suspension from the university. A court later reinstated him. And now the university may be required to pay Doe a cool $849,231.25 to cover his legal costs — if the judge on the case accepts the recommendation of a federal magistrate. The report filed by U.S. magistrate Joel Hoppe in John Doe v. Alger says that the school unfairly suspended the student for a sexual assault that was alleged but never proven. In fact, Doe was found innocent by the campus

“We all need to recognize that falsely accused people are victims, too,” said Cassie Jaye of persons — mostly men — who are falsely accused of committing sexual misconduct. She made her comments within a broader discussion on feminism and associated #MeToo narratives. Jaye, documentary filmmaker of The Red Pill, offered her comments on Tuesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with co-hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak. Describing “public opinion” as succumbing to a “mob mentality” in pursuit of prominent men accused of sexual assault or varying misconduct, Jaye warned against premature judgment. “Without due process, we cannot take sides, but that is what’s happening, mainly

John’s freshman year at James Madison University started out great. He did well in his classes. He made friends easily. He even started dating a fellow student. But just a couple weeks into his first semester, John’s world came crashing down. The girl he had been dating accused him of sexual assault and took her charge to the campus authorities. James Madison promptly conducted an initial hearing and found that John was “not responsible.” And John lived happily ever after…only he didn’t. After all, this is 2018, people. The campus hearing should have been the end of this nightmare for John, but it was far from over. The girl appealed James Madison’s initial decision and a separate appeal boa

More than three years after Rolling Stone published the most significant false accusation of rape since the Duke Lacrosse hoax, the saga is officially over for the magazine. That’s right, Rolling Stone is only now able to put this travesty behind them — at least legally. The magazine reached a final settlement in late December with the members of the fraternity that were falsely maligned in the story. The details have not been disclosed, but at least two members of the fraternity will be the beneficiary of the settlement. Three fraternity members – George Elias IV, Ross Fowler and Stephen Hadford alleged there was enough information in the article to identify them as some of the potential ra

Duke University broke its word to a men’s soccer player when it mishandled the disciplinary process it put him through after a fellow student accused him of sexual misconduct, Durham’s top judge agrees. Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson acted on that conclusion Monday by turning a temporary injunction into a permanent one that bars Duke from imposing a six-semester suspension that soccer player Ciaran McKenna otherwise faced. Hudson’s ruling effectively decided McKenna’s breach-of-contract lawsuit against Duke ahead of trial, leaving the two sides little more to do but argue about the damages Duke eventually might have to pay him. He’ll be seeking more than just attorneys’

Nearly 140 professors and legal experts have endorsed an open letter calling for an immediate end to the use of “victim-centered” and “trauma-informed” practices during campus sexual misconduct investigations. Despite feminist groups praising these practices for encouraging victims to come forward, the open letter warns that the “believe the victim” ethos and the policies it has inspired “undermine neutrality in campus Title IX disciplinary processes.” Spearheaded by the Maryland-based nonprofit Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), the letter also argues that, by its very nature, the “believe the victim” ethos presumes the guilt of the accused and erodes due process. The letter was

On a fall night in 2016, a young woman left the library at University of Wisconsin-Madison and walked home, joined by a fellow student she'd recently met. His name was Alec Cook. He was a 20-year-old junior at the time, and his scruffy dirty-blond hair and angular cheeks were infamous on campus. The woman said Cook invited her back to his apartment. Before agreeing to join him, she said she made it clear she didn’t want to have sex. But, when they got inside, she said Cook took off all her clothes, and despite her pleas to stop, raped her, according to the criminal complaint. The woman reported what happened to the police, and the news spread around campus. A few days later, police arrested

‘I could smell the booze and see she was pretty far gone’ When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos* rescinded the Obama administration’s Title IX guidance documents, some states considered legislation that would codify its provisions in their own laws, namely a low evidence standard and preferential treatment of accusers. The co-author of a California codification bill, vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown, and national leader in the #MeToo movement has now herself been accused by multiple men. It’s causing Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia immediate headaches: A college where she was scheduled to speak today has postponed the event. She also announced Friday she was “voluntarily taking an immediate unpaid le

Five months ago, Shane Morgan’s mugshot was all over the news. His face — solemn and pale — ran along stories headlined, “Bend man accused of forcing teen into sex work” and “Court records detail deranged, illegal relationship.” Morgan, 22, had been arrested by Bend Police on suspicion of two counts of first-degree kidnapping — a crime that carries a minimum sentence in Oregon of seven years and six months. Additionally, he was charged with sexual coercion and assault constituting domestic violence. The fallout was swift and severe, he told The Bulletin through his lawyer, Jamie Gerlitz. He lost a job. His roommates kicked him out. He felt scared everywhere he went. But it became clear the s

Forty-one percent of Tulane’s undergraduate women have been sexually assaulted since arriving on campus, the university reported last month. That’s a shocking statistic, but is it true? The number is worth breaking down because Congress may soon require all colleges to use similar surveys to inform their practices. One problem is how broadly Tulane defines sexual assault. The school goes beyond rape or attempted rape to include any form of unwanted sexual contact, including a stolen kiss or hug. The latter may be unwelcome but are they assault? This definition helps explain why nearly 38% of female undergraduates and 16% of males said they’d been victims of unwanted sexual contact. The stati

He pulled his groin muscle, rubbed it and groaned. A staff member asked him what was wrong. He explained he had just injured himself. That didn’t matter to the female student who had just accused him of sexual misconduct. He endured a “humiliating and stressful investigation into his actions” before the school belatedly exonerated him. This is what happens when Title IX warriors, blinded by their Manichean vision of helpless victims and toxic masculinity, set their sights on autistic students. Lee Burdette Williams, director of higher education training at the College Autism Network, writes about her experience working with accused students on the autism spectrum and their families in a must

Schools were engaging in these practices long before anyone made them. Serving on a panel that hears Title IX sexual-assault complaints on college campuses sounds like a full-time job. According to a recent story in the Chronicle of Higher Education, at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, students, faculty, and staff who volunteer “are trained in the Wisconsin system’s conduct code, which is written into state law. They also complete an annual course on sexual assault and sexual misconduct, developed by system lawyers. [They learn] about the definitions of sexual misconduct and related terms . . . the nuances of consent and on trauma-informed questioning.” If universities don’t train pan

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her advisers have made a remarkably good start at ending the Obama administration’s abuse of federal regulatory power to attack the due-process rights of university students accused of sexual assault. But the more important task—the crafting of Title IX regulations to ensure fair treatment for both parties in campus cases—is ahead. Last September, DeVos publicly called for fairness to both sides in campus adjudications. About two weeks later, the Education Department withdrew the Title IX “guidance" that the Obama administration had imposed to specify guilt-presuming procedures for the nation’s colleges and universities to use. DeVos has also ended the Oba