A male student at the University of Connecticut will get a new campus hearing – with strict instructions for fairness – after the school punished him even though evidence suggested his accuser was not credible.
The student, referred to in court documents as John Doe, will receive a new hearing that will allow him to actually present evidence in his defense. John was accused by a female student referred to only as Jane Roe several months after the two engaged in sexual intercourse in April 2019.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, Jane and her friend began talking to John. Jane later expressed interest in him and left with him and several other students after the party to get food:
When the party ended, a group of six students piled into a car to get food. Jane sat on John’s lap, but later claimed she was forced to. John said he didn’t ask her or force her to sit on his lap. The student in the front passenger seat later said he felt Jane’s knees against the back of the seat and he could tell she was moving around on John’s lap. Another student in the back seat said he had to look away from the two because Jane was gyrating her hips on John’s lap. Jane later claimed she did not do this, and the multiple witnesses disputing her story were kept out of the campus investigator’s report on the allegations. The fact that Jane had at least two instances of claiming one thing while multiple witnesses disputed her should have made UConn skeptical of her allegations, yet the school ignored them and expelled John, later reducing his punishment to a two-year suspension.
The other instance of Jane claiming one thing while witnesses said another was when she said John was “falling over” drunk. Multiple other witnesses, including one of Jane’s friends, said otherwise.
John said he fully intended to go home alone that night and was even dropped off in front of his dorm, but Jane kept calling for him to get back in the car and go home with her. She would later claim she didn’t invite John back, and then change her story to say she did invite him back, but just to watch TV and eat pizza. Multiple witnesses disputed both of her claims.
Still, campus investigators ignored all this evidence and took Jane’s allegations as fact. John explained how Jane gave him “unambiguous” consent for sexual activity, but because Jane denied this, UConn investigators found John responsible.
John petitioned the court to stop UConn from implementing his two-year suspension and the court agreed, finding that the school ignoring Jane’s history of inconsistent statements and her lack of credibility to determine John responsible violated his due process rights.
Now the school and John have agreed to a new hearing, as author and professor K.C. Johnson noted on Twitter.
“After [temporary restraining order], pending settlement in @UConn due process case. Guilty finding w/drawn, student gets new hearings w/new rights: to call witnesses, to have relevant questions asked through panel, to have credibilty [sic] determination made in context of events of entire night.
After TRO, pending settlement in @UConn due process case. Guilty finding w/drawn, student gets new hearings w/new rights: to call witnesses, to have relevant questions asked through panel, to have credibilty determination made in context of events of entire night. pic.twitter.com/K3swaZ5YrN
— KC Johnson (@kcjohnson9) February 10, 2020
Indeed, the court listed 12 demands of the new hearing, including documentation of its rationale behind its future finding of John, and the requirement that evidence and witnesses presented at the hearing must be made available to both parties prior to the hearing.