Pennsylvania State University appeared to be more concerned with federal pressure to “do something” about campus sexual assault than the life of one its students.
The student was found responsible using a process even the federal government has deemed unfair (more on that later) and suspended for two semesters. The problem is, the fourth-year architectural engineering student says that if the suspension is upheld he will be forced to return to war-torn Syria, where two members of his family have already been killed due to the civil war.
The student’s father is a permanent U.S. resident, but the student — identified as John Doe in his lawsuit against the university — has not received his U.S. visa for permanent residency. He is a resident of Kuwait, but that residency is dependent upon his student status. With a suspension, he would be sent back to his native Syria.
The student in question was accused of sexual assault earlier this spring, months after a sexual encounter last December. The encounter, which occurred at a campus fraternity house, involved a young woman who went to the basement during a party, where Doe and two of his friends were, and performed oral sex on all three.
Doe says in his lawsuit that the woman initiated the encounter. She told the university that she had been too drunk to consent to such behavior. It was her sister that reported the encounter to police, but after an investigation, the police declined to file charges. The accuser then went to the school, which initiated its own investigation into the matter, using a single-investigator model of adjudication.
The single-investigator model used by Penn State replaced a hearing procedure where students could call witnesses and cross-examine their accuser. The new model employed by Penn State had one person interview the accuser, accused and any witnesses they provided, then present their findings to a hearing panel, without the students being able to participate.
The Education Department has deemed the single-investigator model to be unfair, as it creates conflicts of interest.
John Doe alleges that the investigator discovered that the accuser’s friend said she did not seem intoxicated and was walking fine on her own. At the same time, because the accuser claimed she wouldn’t normally do what she had done, she was declared too drunk to consent.
Both the accuser and the accused were allowed to review and question the investigator’s report prior to it being sent to the hearing board. Doe says in his lawsuit that even though he didn’t appear in front of the hearing panel, based on the investigator’s notes, the panel concluded that he “seemed insensitive to the nonconsensual nature of the sexual acts.”
As always, we can never know what actually happened in that basement back in December. We do know that Penn State is one of more than 100 schools under investigation by the Education Department, and that the current campus climate incentivizes schools to find student responsible rather than to determine the truth.
Here we have yet another “he said/she said” situation, and the school appeared to be more concerned with the current hysteria surrounding campus sexual assault than the real life potential of death to one of its students.
Luckily for this student, a U.S. district judge stayed his suspension, meaning he won’t be forced to return to a war-torn country. This doesn’t mean he will ultimately win his lawsuit, as many accused students have found it difficult to win in these situations. But at least for the time being his life won’t be at risk.
