Courtesy of Hamilton College
On Oct. 30, 2017, a complaint was filed in the Northern District Court of New York on behalf of a former Hamilton male student against the College. The complaint comes after his expulsion last year, twelve days before graduation, due to allegations of sexual misconduct brought forward by four female peers that were said to have occurred three years prior.
The plaintiff, proceeding pseudonymously as “John Doe,” accuses the College of violating his right to due process as well as “discriminat[ing] against him on the basis of his gender.”
The plaintiff calls out the College’s Sexual Misconduct Policy as “insufficient to protect the rights of accused male students.” John Doe maintains that this policy “affords the women who accuse a presumption of truth, blamelessness, and the full weight of institutional support.” According to the suit, this creates a burden for male students who have been accused to defend themselves in these proceedings.
The due process allegations are multifold. First, the suit faults the College for changing its sexual assault investigation procedures in response to the Obama-era Title IX guidance –which have since been rescinded by the Trump administration. This guidance lowered the standard of proof needed for disciplinary action and switched the formal hearing model to one of investigation. The resulting guidelines and procedures that were implemented by the College are faulted with producing discriminatory outcomes.
The suit also accuses the College of “failing to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation.” The plaintiff maintains that there was no proof that he had committed any of the misconducts he was accused of, and therefore, his expulsion was invalid. He was never found responsible for two of the alleged assaults, as the claimants withdrew days after Doe was removed from campus. In the case of the third, he was not found responsible.
However, in the fourth case, for which he was found responsible, the plaintiff maintains that his guilt was “erroneously concluded” because the woman’s story was never found to be accurate. Instead, it was found that she was “incapacitated” due to alcohol consumption and therefore unable to give consent. As such, the plaintiff believes he was denied the right to fair and just proceedings because the conclusion was reached on the basis of a story that “lacked credibility” and an assumption that she lacked the ability to consent, for which “there was no evidence.” The finding of responsibility and subsequent sanctioning were therefore not only “unwarranted,” but demonstrated “substantial procedural errors in violation of Title IX and other federal and state laws.”
Moreover, according to the suit, the College acted in ways that were “arbitrary and capricious,” under immense pressure to prove that it could take a hard-line against sexual misconduct. The suit claims, “It was not until the 2016–17 academic year — the year following the most vocal criticism of Hamilton’s failure to expel men found responsible for sexual misconduct — that Hamilton expelled students found responsible for non-consensual sex.”
The suit argues that Terry Martinez — Hamilton’s Vice President and Dean of Students — did not heed the Review Panel’s recommendation of a five year suspension and instead “increased the sanction and expelled John Doe.”
The suit concludes by claiming that the plaintiff was injured in ways that were financial and social. It holds that his educational and future job prospects have been damaged since he was denied a degree despite having completed four years of coursework. It further claims that he was “ostracized” by the campus community and “forever damaged emotionally by the excruciating and unfair process and the terribly unjust results flowing therefrom.”
