The New Boston Post, which covers conservative news in the Bay State, has an interesting report on a lawsuit involving Brandeis University over the school's procedures for handling sexual assault accusations. A student disciplined for sexual assault is suing the university.
The actual facts of the alleged sexual assault are (sadly) pedestrian for this sort of thing, starting with the fact that the initial charges seem pretty contentious. John Doe was engaged in a long-erm and consensual relationship with another male student identified in the complaint as "J.C." They broke up apparently amicably. But four months later, after attending sexual assault training sponsored by Brandeis, J.C. accused Doe of inappropriate overtures and touching that fall far short of rape. Throw into the mix some accusations of jealousy and alcohol abuse, and it seems pretty difficult to judge what really happened here. Nonetheless, Doe was punished by Brandeis based on J.C.'s accusations.
But here's where it gets interesting. The John Doe bringing the lawsuit claims the "special examiner" Brandeis used to gather information about the accusations against him leaked the confidential findings, causing John Doe to lose an internship with a "high-ranking public official" and that he's had other job offers withdrawn as a result of this leak. It appears Brandeis's special examiner here was certainly in a position to leak information to public officials:
Brandeis's special examiner happened to be Elizabeth Sanghavi, a Brookline attorney who previously worked for the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education under President Barack Obama. On her law office's website, Sanghavi lists herself as the co-author of a policy paper urging colleges and universities to adopt the Obama administration's 2011 interpretation of Title IX sexual assault policies, known as the "Dear Colleague" letters. The OCR's letters from 2011 informed schools that OCR would investigate and potentially revoke federal funding under Title IX of schools that did not alter their disciplinary procedures to adopt lower burden-of-proof standards. The OCR ordered new standards be based upon the "preponderance of the evidence" standard, as opposed to the higher "clear and convincing evidence" standard typically applied in such administrative proceedings or the most stringent proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard used in criminal cases.
The John Doe in this case isn't necessarily alleging a big conspiracy here. But it is worth noting at the time he was being investigated in 2014, Brandeis was in the middle of an Office of Civil Rights investigation by the Education Department for its handling of another and unrelated sexual assault case.
Brandeis tried to get John Doe's case thrown out, but instead U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV lambasted the school for throwing the due process baby out with the Title IX bathwater. "Brandeis's policy in sexual misconduct cases had eliminated a hearing of any kind," he wrote in a decision. "Instead, it had instituted a procedure under which a 'Special Examiner' was appointed to conduct an investigation and decide the 'responsibility' of the accused. That procedure was essentially a secret and inquisitorial process."
It's bad enough that universities have their own sexual assault star chambers that can ruin students' lives by validating any dubious accusation that comes along. However, the idea that federal policies may be playing an increasingly large role in encouraging and incentivizing this behavior ought to be a national scandal.