Court ruling shows limits of campus sexual harassment expulsions

A three-judge panel on the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled that a university couldn’t expel a student based on disparaging comments the student made about his ex-girlfriend on the social media platform Twitter.

The student, Navid Yeasin, had been expelled for allegedly violating the University of Kansas’ sexual harassment rules because he sent tweets that called his ex-girlfriend a “psycho” and a “b—-,” among other things. The appeals judges ruled on Friday that while the tweets were “puerile and sexually harassing,” in their opinion, the school couldn’t expel Yeasin because the communications didn’t fall under their jurisdiction.