Student accused of sexual assault wins court case due to university providing him with only one day’s notice of hearing

Virginia Tech University violated a male student’s due process rights when it gave him just one day to prepare for a hearing on allegations he had sexually assaulted a female student, a court has ruled.

The Iranian graduate student, referred to in court documents as John Doe, said in his lawsuit against the university that he met the female student on a dating app in the fall of 2019, and they had a consensual relationship. It didn’t last, but he said he saw her on campus afterward, and they had a friendly conversation. He also alleges that, at some point, the woman made a racist comment about him, saying he was a “brown guy who smelled very bad.”

On November 20, 2019, the female student asked Virginia Tech administrators to issue a do-not-contact order for John, which it provided. At that time, the female student didn’t want to pursue the matter any further.

Two months later, however, she went back to school administrators and made a formal allegation of sexual assault against John. John wasn’t informed about the allegation until nearly a month later, on February 17, 2020, according to his lawsuit.

On February 28, John met with the school’s Title IX investigator to discuss the student conduct process. On this same day, John received the formal charges against him. On March 3, he met with the school’s assistant director of student conduct to further discuss the process. Just two days later, John was informed that his hearing would take place the next day, which he alleges gave him no time to prepare his defense. He asked for the hearing to be delayed but was denied. He was told he had been made aware of the allegations weeks earlier, on February 17.

At that time, however, John didn’t know the date of the hearing and did not obtain an adviser or legal counsel or procure a witness because he had no idea when they would be needed. It also didn’t give John time to review the school’s investigative report against him so he could mount a defense.

John had to attend his hearing without counsel or an advisor and said in his lawsuit that he couldn’t question witnesses and could not present witnesses of his own. Specifically, John learned that the allegations against him came from an incident with his accuser in an elevator. John said he knew a witness who could dispute the allegations.

John was found responsible for sexual assault and expelled, so he sued. In his lawsuit, John alleges the accuser was convinced to pursue the accusation against him by his former graduate advisor, whom John had made several complaints about. John alleges he was retaliated against after reporting that his advisor had made sexual comments about female students, provided grant money that should have gone to John to a female student, and fraudulently claimed John’s research was funded by grant money.

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While Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski – an Obama appointee – allowed Virginia Tech’s motion to dismiss John’s allegations of a hostile environment, he allowed his lawsuit to move forward on John’s claims of grant funding and retaliation. The court also found that John’s due process rights could have been violated when the school gave him a one-day notice of his hearing to determine whether he would be expelled.

The ruling was a win for John and could lead to a settlement with the university.

H/t K.C. Johnson

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