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She Accused Him Of Sexual Assault Three Years After Their Encounter. The School Suspended Him Even Though He Had Graduated.

DailyWire.com

A male student at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) engaged in sexual activity with a female student. Three years later, she asked the school to investigate him for sexual assault, and the school suspended him even though he had already graduated.

The male student, whom The Daily Wire will call ‘John Doe,’ was a freshman at TCNJ in the fall of 2017. Throughout the school year, a female student, referred to in court documents as ‘Jane Roe,’ regularly came over to John’s dorm to spend time with his roommate, her ex-boyfriend with whom she was still friends. According to the lawsuit John filed after TCNJ punished him, he didn’t interact with Jane outside of her visits to his dorm room.

On September 30, 2017, not long into his freshman year, John, Jane, and John’s roommate were all hanging out together in John’s dorm room. At some point, John’s roommate left for the night, and John and Jane remained alone together. The two continued talking into the night, which John says turned into “consensual kissing that lasted for a few minutes.” John asked Jane for oral sex and she agreed. After Jane “voluntarily and willingly” engaged in oral sex with John, the two fell asleep in John’s bed, according to John’s lawsuit.

The next morning, John asked Jane if she wanted to have sex. Colleges teach students that they must ask to engage in any kind of sexual activity. Jane agreed and the two engaged in what John described as “consensual sexual intercourse.” Afterward, Jane left John’s dorm room.

John says in his lawsuit that his subsequent interactions with Jane were “friendly,” and that the two spoke to each other whenever they saw each other on campus, even working on calculus assignments together. John says that at no point did Jane seem “uncomfortable” around him or suggest he had ever done anything wrong.

About a month after John and Jane had sex, Jane began dating another man. John suspects that Jane started regretting their encounter and didn’t want her new boyfriend to find out about it, so at some point after they started dating, Jane told her new boyfriend and a friend that John had sexually assaulted her.

Nearly an entire year after her encounter with John, Jane reported the incident to TCNJ’s Title IX department, which handles claims of sexual assault. John was never notified about the complaint, and just a few weeks after reporting the incident, Jane told the Title IX office that she wanted to close the case.

But three years later – now almost four years since the encounter – Jane asked the Title IX office to reopen her case. On May 4, 2021, Jane filed a formal complaint against John, which required the school to notify him of the allegations. The complaint alleged that John sexually assaulted Jane and “made sexually harassing comments” to her during their calculus class in the second semester of their freshman year. John was informed that an Alternative Resolution Agreement (ARA) was being sought without telling him the implications of such an agreement.

John obtained legal counsel and was sent the ARA, which required him to perform 90 hours of community service and take online classes. John declined to accept the ARA, saying that he felt it was an “unreasonable punishment for something that he did not do,” according to his lawsuit.

Since John didn’t accept the ARA, Jane told the Title IX office that she wanted to pursue the formal resolution process, which required a hearing. At this point, however, John had already graduated from TCNJ and left campus. Yet the school pursued the process anyway.

John’s legal counsel at the time advised him not to speak during the grievance process, because anything he said could be used against him if Jane decided to file criminal charges. Even though TCNJ’s policies say the burden of proof is on the school and not the accused, the school reportedly only pursued evidence that pointed to John’s guilt. The school spoke to Jane’s boyfriend and her friend, who gave inconsistent statements. The school also allowed what John describes as “prejudicial hearsay statements” to be presented to the administrator overseeing the hearing. And while the school allowed Jane to submit hearsay statements regarding her mental state, John was not allowed to rebut her statements or present evidence of his own mental state.

John’s counsel at the time also advised him not to attend the hearing On November 5, 2021, he was informed that he had been found responsible and would be suspended for two years, a note which would appear on his school transcript.

John obtained new legal representation and requested a new hearing with an opportunity to actually be heard, which TCNJ denied. Before the hearing had even taken place, John filed a lawsuit, which TCNJ tried to get dismissed.

U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, last week denied TCNJ’s motion to dismiss, which is a win for John. In general, lawsuits like John’s that survive a motion to dismiss result in some kind of a settlement between the two parties, according to data compiled by Brooklyn College professor K.C. Johnson.

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The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  She Accused Him Of Sexual Assault Three Years After Their Encounter. The School Suspended Him Even Though He Had Graduated.