She Accused Him Of Sexual Assault. Lawsuit Shows Her Allegations Were False, Yet She Continues To Defame Him On Campus

In a blatant example of a school failing to protect a male student from false accusations of sexual assault, the University of Maryland-College Park (UMD) allowed an accuser and a powerful campus group to brand him a rapist even after the school determined he was not responsible, according to a lawsuit.

The male student, referred to in court documents as ‘John Doe,’ was a junior at UMD when he was accused of sexual assault by a female student, referred to only as ‘Jane Roe.’ Jane claimed in a formal complaint filed with the university on October 27, 2020, that she was sexually assaulted by John Doe and another student, referred to as ‘Jacob Poe.’

John contended that his sexual encounter with Jane was consensual, and her contemporaneous text messages supported that contention. Shortly after performing oral sex on John, Jane texted a friend to say what she had just done and added, “I have this thing where I like to make guys feel good.”

After her encounter with John, she became interested in Jacob, according to John’s subsequent lawsuit. Her text messages regarding her feelings for Jacob were also positive, telling that same friend, “As soon as I walked in, I was like ‘oh shit,’” and “I feel like we… Vibed.” Jane engaged in sexual activity with Jacob, after which she fell asleep with him on the couch in John’s apartment, “hugging [him] like a koala,” one witness later testified. The next day, she stayed at the apartment, conversing with John and watching football before going home later that afternoon.

But sometime later, Jane started calling both encounters sexual assault.

Even during the investigation, the university ignored student complaints of harassment and intimidation. Jane’s mother, according to John’s lawsuit, harassed at least two witnesses, threatening one’s family in an effort to prevent him from testifying and saying that if he did testify, “he would have a problem next.” The university “took no meaningful steps to remedy the harassment or witness tampering,” John’s lawsuit says.

Jane’s mother also personally threatened John and Jacob with physical violence on her social media account, according to court documents.

During the investigation process, Jane repeatedly changed her story about what happened with John and Jacob, the lawsuit says. At one point she said John used force, yet another time she said he didn’t use force. She claimed to be drunk and later claimed she was sober. She once said she had said no “eight to ten times” but later said she didn’t say no.

She also at one point said John “forcibly removed her clothing” but subsequently said she removed her own clothing.

Jane also claimed that she didn’t leave after allegedly being sexually assaulted by two different men because she didn’t know how to exit the apartment building. Multiple witnesses at the hearing, however, insisted they offered to walk Jane home but that she declined. And far from being distressed, the witnesses testified that Jane “seemed like she was enjoying every moment,” that she danced, joked, and stayed up with everyone until five or six o’clock in the morning.

Jane had also told a UMD police officer that she “had a consensual sexual encounter” with John, but the school never sought these statements on its own as part of the investigation. They were only included after John obtained them through a Public Information Act request.

Even though the school had a mountain of evidence that Jane’s allegations were false, it went through with its process under Title IX, costing John more than $100,000 in legal fees, court documents say.

Prior to the hearing, Jane submitted photographs of clothes she claimed to have worn the night of the alleged sexual assaults, saying it was stained with semen. The hearing officer – in a rare move not usually seen during campus hearings – had the clothing sent to a DNA lab, which ultimately found no semen on the clothes.

On September 1, 2021, the Title IX hearing officer found John and Jacob not responsible for sexual assault. Jane did not appeal the determination, even though accusers are able to under campus Title IX policies.

This should have ended John’s ordeal, but as he alleges in his lawsuit, after he was thoroughly exonerated in an atmosphere typically hostile toward the accused, Jane and a campus organization allegedly spread the claim on campus that he was a rapist, going so far as to contact campus organizations to get John removed from them.

Jane went to UMD’s officially recognized student organization, Preventing Sexual Assault (PSA), and claimed to be a victim of sexual assault. As John noted in his lawsuit, PSA co-presidents Rachel Salem and Hailey Chaikin stated in a public forum that PSA had a special influence over UMD’s Office for Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct (OCRSM), which helps coordinate the school’s Title IX policies. Salem and Chaikin, according to

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