A Stanford University student named Leah Francis went public two years ago with claims that a student she had previously dated raped her in their hometown of Juneau, Alaska, over winter break.
The federal Office for Civil Rights also opened an investigation into Stanford in response to Francis’s complaint that the school didn’t sufficiently punish the student she accused.
That unnamed student is the likely plaintiff in a new federal sex-discrimination lawsuit against Stanford for its handling of a rape investigation, Palo Alto Weekly reports: Both his suit and Francis’s allegations identify Jan. 1, 2014 and Juneau.
“John Doe” alleges that not only did the school fail to inform him of his rights under its since-scrapped “Alternate Review Process” – his assigned counselor even “discouraged” him from getting an attorney – but that
the Alternate Review Process itself was developed and implemented “with the intent of prosecuting successful sexual assault disciplinary proceeding against men” and that Stanford “intentionally drafted the ARP in order to increase prosecution of successful disciplinary proceedings against men for sexual assault and trained the students and staff involved in implementing the ARP in a manner that targeted men.”
Doe claims Stanford was tilted against him, specifically as a male in violation of Title IX, at every stage: not letting him introduce evidence relating to his accuser’s credibility, “heavily” and “improperly” redacting his statement to the review panel, redacting his accuser’s statements that “disproved the allegations against him,” and putting him through a review process “motivated by gender bias.”
The Juneau district attorney had declined to bring charges against the accused student. Keep in mind that Alaska requires accusers to demonstrate they did “something to indicate strong lack of consent”:
“If they don’t communicate lack of consent, then we look at the circumstances to say, ‘Well, was it obvious that she wasn’t consenting?'” [James] Scott told the Juneau Empire. “In this case, we do not have sufficient evidence to overcome the fact that we would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect recklessly disregarded her lack of consent.”
Because the incident happened in another jurisdiction, Stanford’s ARP should not have investigated at all, Doe’s suit claims.
He wants his punishment removed: a two-year hold on his undergraduate diploma. (Stanford actually reduced his punishment after Francis appealed it as insufficient, which suggests the school wasn’t confident in the ARP ruling.)
The ARP was scrapped this year, the Weekly reports: “Students, faculty and administrators alike have said the Alternate Review Process was cumbersome, time-consuming and often painful and unsatisfying for the students involved.”
Read the story and the Weekly‘s earlier reporting.
h/t #RepealVAWA
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