Bad Jury Decision Tells Colleges The Only Way To Appease An Accuser Is To Expel The Accused

A female student who claimed a man sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions months apart was awarded $300,000 by a federal grand jury, which decided the college didn’t do enough to punish the accused man because it didn’t expel him.

The woman was a student at Chadron State College when she claimed a male student (neither of whom have been named in media reports) sexually assaulted in May 2016 in her dorm room and then months later in September 2016 in a bathroom in the dorm where she worked as a student desk worker. The students’ interactions before and after the alleged second assault were captured on a surveillance camera, but not the alleged assault itself. Nebraska Public Media reported that a “university investigator claimed the silent footage made the victim appear flirtatious.” The accuser claimed the footage showed her fighting off her attacker.

The woman told a counselor about both incidents and the counselor accompanied the student to a hospital after she mentioned the alleged second assault (it is unclear how long after the alleged second assault the student mentioned it to a counselor). Police investigated the woman’s claims but it does not appear as though they arrested or charged the accused, an indication there likely wasn’t enough evidence to suggest an actual crime occurred. The police did, however, contact Chadron’s Title IX coordinator to conduct its own investigation.

Campus investigations include fewer, if any, due process protections for accused students, and colleges and universities have been under immense pressure for the past decade to find accused students responsible no matter what the evidence shows. The fact that Chadron did not suspend or expel the student suggests what has been alleged might not line up with the evidence.

Nevertheless, Chadron did punish the accused student, according to the Star-Herald. A no-contact order was immediately put in place between the two students, and the male student was initially banned from the dorm where the woman worked. This was later changed to a ban from the dorm where she was reassigned to work. During a trial, the school pointed to other measures put in place to protect the accuser, including assigning her a security guard. The school also encouraged her to transition to remote learning. The male student was also required to go through counseling and read a book about male sexual assault and write a report about it. He also had to take an online course about consent.

But because he was not expelled at the accuser’s demand, she sued the school and said Chadron did not adequately respond to her accusation, even though it clearly did. A jury agreed with her and awarded her $300,000 in damages.

The accuser claimed in court documents that the accused admitted to having sex with her in the bathroom of a dorm and that it was nonconsensual, but we can’t know for sure. Nebraska Public Media said the accused student allegedly admitted the woman said “no” at some point during their encounter, but she could have said “no” to one thing and not another. With the way media reports on these incidents (always taking the accusers side) it’s hard to know whether the male student actually openly admitted to committing a crime or whether he simply said she said “no” to one act but said “yes” to something else.

Chadron only found him responsible for violating the school’s sexual harassment policy, not its sexual assault policy. And even though the college put in place numerous measures to punish the accuse and protect the accuser, because the male student wasn’t expelled, the accuser was awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This sends the message to schools – if they didn’t already feel this way, which many appear to – that the only way to avoid being sued by an accuser and getting negative media attention is to expel the accused regardless of the evidence. It’s a dangerous precedent and one shared by numerous politicians who have already tried to make this the reality on colleges and universities across the country.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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