Source: https://cei.org/blog/punishment-first-trial-later-or-never-education-departments-investigation-tufts-university
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 01:15:39+00:00

Document:
The University also failed to provide the Student with effective interim measures during the eighteen months that followed her January 2010 report that she had been sexually assaulted. While the University issued a stay-away order to prevent the Student and the Accused from communicating with each other, the University’s policies and procedures at the time did not include any mechanism to enforce physical separation of students unless/until there was an actual finding in a case or a court order required separation. The Student therefore obtained a court-ordered restraining order in February 2010 that the University enforced in the residence hall by requiring the Accused to move out of the residence hall and allowing the Student and the Accused to alternate attendance at the Program’s weekly seminar. After this restraining order was vacated, the University initially required the Student to attend weekly Program seminars for the Fall semester together with the Accused or risk expulsion from the Program, and then permitted her to miss the seminars altogether without penalty, which resulted in her not attending any Program seminars in the 2010-11 academic year. Furthermore, the University did not inform the Student that she could request to move out of her residence hall for several months after she isolated in her residence hall room in the first part of 2010 until the Accused was required to move out of the residence hall and also reported being harassed by other students. Because of the arrangements made by the University, the Student was denied the opportunity to attend and participate fully with other students in the Program seminar, first when she alternated attendance at the seminar with the Accused in the Spring 2010 and then when she did not attend the seminars in person at all in the Fall 2011. In both instances, the University’s response deprived the Student of educational benefits offered to other Program students. Moreover, because of her continued concerns about not feeling safe on campus, the Student accelerated her education and graduated a year early. . . . The Student was thus exposed to close physical proximity to the Accused and to harassment in the residence hall for several months. . .The interim measures provided by the University deprived the Student of an equal opportunity to participate with other students in the Program by first alternating her attendance at the weekly seminars with the Accused and then making arrangements in the Fall 2010 under which she did not participate at all in the seminars. . .The University’s failure to provide effective interim protective measures for the Student and, instead, placing the burden of interim measures largely on the Student was contrary to the requirements of Title IX to provide effective interim measures that minimize the burden on complainants of sexual harassment/violence.
Not only have people successfully sued for a million dollars or more under Title IX and its sister statute, Title VI (which deals with racial harassment), as in the Zeno case, but the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights does in fact effectively impose sanctions on schools even when it doesn’t cut off their federal funds, since it sometimes conditions the end of the investigation on a resolution agreement that contains monetary compensation for victims. For example, Tufts recently agreed to provide “monetary compensation” for a complainant, despite denying any wrongdoing, although it balked at an Education Department demand that it also declare itself in violation of Title IX: “Tufts signed an agreement with the government earlier this month, pledging to take a long list of steps in improving their policies, as well as providing monetary compensation to the student.” Moreover, many seemingly-innocent students have been expelled or suspended based on meager evidence, as is evidenced by the cases cited on the web site of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and in former Massachusetts ACLU leader Harvey Silverglate’s Wall Street Journal op-ed in discussing the Caleb Warner case. As I noted in the commentary below, “For examples of seemingly-innocent students expelled or suspended from school based on very weak evidence, in the aftermath of the Education Department’s “Dear Colleague” letter, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.” Unfortunately, the deck is usually stacked against the accused student. School officials have every incentive to expel students if there is any chance they are guilty at all. A state university official who doesn’t kick out the accused can be individually sued under decisions like Murrell v. School District No. 1 and Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee. That’s in addition to the fact that the university itself can be sued under Title IX. School officials can also be sued under state sexual harassment laws that reach further than Title IX, like New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination, which provides for individual liability on the part of school officials, as well as liability based on constructive rather than actual notice. By contrast, a school that expels an innocent accused probably can’t be sued, even if he is probably innocent, since the accused only has a right to PROCEDURAL due process, not any SUBSTANTIVE finding of guilt or innocence. So as long as the school goes through the motions of giving the accused a fair hearing, and follows its procedures, it can kick him out even if he is probably not guilty.
Note, however, that there is a division among courts as to whether public school officials can be sued individually under the Fourteenth Amendment for failing to remedy "peer harassment" (in addition to the school system itself, which obviously can be sued for failing to respond to peer harassment under Title IX). As I have explained earlier, individual school officials generally should not be subject to such liability, as a logical matter, given the Constitution's "state-action doctrine," which results in the Fourteenth Amendment being more limited than Title IX as to peer harassment. But courts are split on this subject, with some, like the Second Circuit, broadly allowing such suits against public school teachers and administrators over racial or sexual harassment by students, while others do not, see, e.g., Soper v. Hoben, 194 F.3d 845 (6th Cir. 1999) (in harassment cases, equal protection claim requires discriminatory purpose, while Title IX claim requires only showing of indifference to harassment); Morlock v. West Central Educ. Dist., 46 F.Supp.2d 892 (D. Minn. 1999) (same); S.S. v. Eastern Kentucky Univ., 2008 WL 2596660 (6th Cir. July 2, 2008) (disability harassment); UWM Post v. Board of Regents, 774 F.Supp. 1163 (E.D. Wis. 1991) (Equal Protection Clause requires showing that agent of college, not student, engaged in harassment). Although private colleges are not regulated by the Constitution, the Education Department cannot force them to discipline students in ways that would violate the First Amendment or due process guarantees if they were at a state college. The government cannot force a private entity to do something that the government cannot itself do directly. See, e.g., Merritt v. Mackey, 827 F.2d 1368 (9th Cir.1987) (due process); Okwedy v. Molinari, 333 F.3d 339 (2d Cir. 2003) (free speech); Rattner v. Netburn, 930 F.2d 204 (2d Cir. 1991) (free speech); Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 38 (1915) (equal protection).

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