Complaints are addressed by Tomas Grace, the University s director of judicial affairs, who arranges a formal, private meeting to try to reach a resolution by the two sides. If an accused person accepts responsibility for a sexual offense at such a meeting, disciplinary action is taken immediately. In this phase, there is no contact between the victim and the accused. If a deal cannot be reached or an accused person denies the charges, the next step is a judicial board hearing. Each hearing is heard by three people one dean, one member of the Student Senate and one member of the faculty.
Hearings involve testimony and cross-examination of each witness.
In cases of sexual assault, lawyers do not have access to witnesses as in criminal court. The hearing body determines the method of questioning as it applies to each individual case, and it may alter the method at any time, depending on the nature of the case. Grace emphasized the difference between University judicial hearings and a criminal court proceeding. As a private university, our judicial process is not held to the same standard of courts of law, Grace said. The judicial process in a nutshell is a system fundamentally different than a criminal proceeding.