Due Process Victory: Superior Court Judge Overturns Student Suspension in U.C. San Diego Sexual Assault Case

A victory for due process, with national implications.

At the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Judge: UCSD unfair to accused student":

San Diego — A Superior Court judge has ruled that a UC San Diego board’s disciplinary action against a student accused of sexual misconduct was unfair and not supported by evidence.

The student, who had faced a suspension of one year and a quarter, will be allowed to remain in school under the ruling handed down Friday by Judge Joel Pressman.

The school issued a statement Monday that it was evaluating the decision and considering whether to appeal.

Attorney Mark Hathaway, who represented the student known as John Doe in the lawsuit, said the ruling could send a message to other universities who may be overzealous in pursuing penalties against students accused of sexual misconduct.

“It’s encouraging to see courts recognizing that sexual misconduct complaints on campus cannot be resolved at the expense of constitutional rights and fundamental fairness,” Hathaway said.

The undergraduate facing suspension claimed in a lawsuit filed in April that he had been wrongly accused of sexual misconduct by a female UC San Diego student over an incident Feb. 1, 2014, and that the university had unfairly investigated the case.

Pressman agreed that UCSD investigators were unfair to the student because they did not allow him to present questions that would challenge his accuser’s claims. The judge also wrote in his decision that evidence did not support the investigator’s findings and that the university abused its discretion by increasing sanctions without explanation after the student appealed the penalty...

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Ruling in favor of UC student accused of sex assault could ripple across U.S.":

It began as a typical college hookup: two students at UC San Diego met at a party last year, began drinking and ended up in bed.

The encounter snowballed into a sexual assault complaint, university investigation and a finding that the male student should be suspended.

But the accused student fought back in court and won — marking what is believed to be the first judicial ruling in recent years that a university failed to provide a fair trial in a sexual misconduct case. Some legal experts said Tuesday that the finding could have a broad national impact.

"It could have tremendous persuasive influence on other courts," said Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who, along with 15 colleagues, has raised concerns about the rights of accused students in campus sexual assault cases.

Fatima Goss Graves, vice president of the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C., called the decision an outlier that was inconsistent with other court rulings on the due process protections required in these cases.

In the San Diego case, Superior Court Judge Joel M. Pressman found that the accused student, identified as John Doe, was impermissibly prevented from fully confronting and cross-examining his accuser.

The judge also found that there was insufficient evidence to back the university's findings that Doe had forced the accuser, identified as Jane Roe, into sexual activity without her consent. The judge ordered UC San Diego to drop its finding against Doe and all sanctions, including a suspension of one year and an additional academic quarter.

The case is being watched nationally as concern has grown that the intensified crackdown on campus sexual assault over the last few years has at times skewed too far against those accused. Over the last four years, the U.S. Department of Education has launched more investigations, imposed more fines and issued more guidelines on campus sexual assault than ever before, pressuring schools to improve what many acknowledged were serious flaws in their handling of complaints.

But the crackdown has also raised concerns about fairness...

Yeah, just a few "concerns."

And how about that Fatima Goss Graves? No surprise this social justice warrior disagrees with a ruling affirming due process. Remember, for leftists you never question the accuser. To do so only perpetuates "rape culture," or something.