A judge has ordered California State University to overturn the expulsion of a male student who allegedly sexually assaulted a female student.
John Doe, as he is referred to in court documents, will be reinstated after the school relied on hearsay and misrepresented evidence to conclude he had committed sexual assault against a student referred to as Jane Roe.
As is typical in these cases, the two students met at an off-campus party. The party occurred on March 5, 2016 at the Delta Chi Fraternity chapter of California Polytechnic University-San Luis Obispo, which falls under the CSU umbrella. Both students have admitted to kissing while dancing together, but that’s where their stories diverge.
John claims that he arrived at the party around 10 p.m. He was in his friend Garrett Braun’s room, then spent about half-an-hour on the dance floor, and then went to fraternity member Mason Copp’s room where Jane was. Jane had hurt her ankle and entered the party for help. John says he found her sitting on a couch with her ankle up with a bag of ice. He says she was trying not to cry because of the pain and the fact that she muddied her shoes. He says he asked if she wanted him to help her find a ride home, but she declined.
John says he left the room and went back to Braun’s room but returned to check on Jane 20 minutes later. She reportedly said she was feeling better and was walking around a little. John claims she then “came on to” him by hugging him and asking him to dance. He says she placed his hands on her hips after dancing for a bit, and after 20 minutes, they began to kiss. He says the pair returned to Copp’s room and were holding hands and kissing. Copp allegedly saw them. John says Jane’s friends came to check if she wanted to leave but she said she wanted to stay.
She then asked to use the restroom, according to John, and he showed her to the bathroom connected to Braun’s bedroom. John says he and Jane started kissing again after she came out of the bathroom, and they fell onto Braun’s bed. He says they were “rolling around kissing” for five to seven minutes. Braun entered the room to get a jacket, saw the two together, and left. John says he was on top of Jane and she suddenly became flustered and wanted to leave. John was confused, but texted her 20 minutes later saying he hoped her ankle felt better.
He also provided CSU with messages showing he texted her at 11:54 p.m. about cleaning her shoes the next morning and she replied: “Haha for sure I need shoe cleaner and you’re fun. I’ll definitely text you back.” The text message about her ankle was sent at 1:17 a.m., after she had left. Jane’s roommate texted John back to the ankle message, saying: “Honest[l]y F*** you” and signed her name. John apparently thought she was joking, to which the roommate replied: “yeah no go f*** yourself don’t text this number again.” John texted back: “Hahaha. Sleep tight [Jane] and company. Nice to meet you all.”
The next morning, one of Jane’s roommates, Anna Lorentzen, sought out resident advisor Tyler Lee because she was “wondering how to go about reporting an attempted rape.” Lorentzen and Jane met with Lee in his room. Jane claimed she hurt her ankle and went into the Delta Chi house for ice. She then used the restroom and one of the men who helped her with her ankle attempted to kiss her. She said she kissed him back and sat down on his bed because her ankle hurt. She said he tried to kiss her again and she said “no,” but then he attacked her. She read Lee a text message she had sent Lorentzen after the alleged encounter.
Jane claimed she didn’t want to do anything with John “because he wasn’t cute,” but that he pushed her down and got on top of her. She claimed she yelled at him and slapped him in the face, so he slapped her back. She said she “started cussing a s*** ton and he like forcefully started kissing me and bit my lip so hard it started to bleed and he used his feet to pin down mine and moved my ankle in a way that ended up making [it] 20x worse…” She then said he pinned her shoulders and took her shirt off so she punched him. She then grabbed her shirt and ran into the bathroom while crying. She says she cleaned up and ordered an Uber and left.
Jane said she did not want to file a report or take part in an investigation, but wanted the fraternity to be put on notice of the incident.
Jane then told the school’s Coordinator of Student Development, Jill Rounds, about the incident. Even though Jane did not want to participate in an investigation, the school decided to investigate John. The investigation consisted of interviews of fraternity members – including Braun and Copp – and Jane’s friends, including Lorentzen. The witness statements amounted to rumors and hearsay surrounding what Jane had claimed.
Three witnesses identified by John as witnesses to his interactions with Jane were not interviewed, according to John.
John was found responsible and expelled. Three weeks before the investigation concluded, John was told by school investigators they were still “finalizing the report, which substantiates your violation” of CSU policies. This indicated that a decision had already been made before the investigation was complete.
John sued, alleging his due process rights were violated in an unfair procedure. John was not allowed to question – directly or indirectly – his accuser or the witnesses. The investigation report, for example, claimed Braun had indicated he saw John pinning down Jane on his bed, but John produced a two-page summary of an interview conducted with Braun by a private investigator (hired by John) that stated Braun had witnessed consensual activity between the two students.
The allegedly substantial evidence that proved by a preponderance of evidence that John did attack Jane was that some students claimed Jane’s shirt was ripped, John’s statement that Jane “all of a sudden” freaked out, the angry text messages from Jane’s phone to John, and Rounds’ (the school administrator) claim she saw Jane with a split lip.
This evidence seems bad, but it was apparently misconstrued in the investigation report. There was never any evidence of a ripped shirt, just a rumor that snowballed. One of Jane’s friends told a fraternity member that John “ripped [Jane’s] shirt off,” but this allegedly meant that John took Jane’s shirt off rapidly. Neither this friend, nor Jane, ever mentioned her shirt was ripped. The fraternity member who was told about the shirt being ripped off then told another member about a ripped shirt.
The angry texts were also evidence of nothing, since it was Lorentzen who sent them and not Jane. Lorentzen said in an interview with the school only that the texts from John were “bizarre” but did not explain why she was hostile and wasn’t asked follow-up questions.
The claim about the split lip suggested Rounds noted it on March 6, 2016, the day after the incident when she spoke to Jane. But Rounds didn’t say anything about a split lip until she was directly asked about it five months later, on July 28, 2016. No one else had mentioned seeing Jane’s split lip.
The court contended that John’s claim that Jane suddenly became upset meant something had happened, but could not say what. John was asked why Jane would make the claim but he couldn’t give a reason. This was because, since Jane refused to participate in the investigation, he could not cross-examine her, even indirectly. He also could not question the witnesses. Had he been able to, he may have discovered that Jane’s boyfriend was out of town, and she might have been scared that someone saw her kissing another man, leading to her abrupt change of heart.
Regardless, Judge James C. Chalfant ruled that the school must overturn John’s expulsion, “Based on the failure to present substantial evidence.” He also directed CSU “to take such further action as is consistent with his status of a student at [California Polytechnic University-San Luis Obispo].
CSU did not immediately responded to a press inquiry.
UPDATE: John’s attorney, Mark Hathaway, told The Daily Wire that John is “elated to be able to move forward with his university degree and put this Title IX nightmare behind him.”