By Cecelia Smith-Schoenwalder
Washington and Lee University has denied a former student’s claim that he was falsely accused of sexual assault, which led to his expulsion.
The student was expelled in November after a student-faculty board found that he had had non-consensual sex with a fellow student. Identifying himself as John Doe, he has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Lynchburg claiming that the sex was consensual.
He claims that his accuser changed her mind about their encounter and came forward eight months after the incident in response to a presentation by W&L Title IX Coordinator Lauren Kozak on Oct. 5, 2014 in which Kozak argued that consensual sex could constitute rape.
In documents the university filed in the case earlier this month, Kozak refutes Doe’s account of the presentation and says she was not in attendance Oct. 5, 2014.
During the presentation, according to Doe’s lawsuit, Kozak told students “regret equals rape.”
“This is also false,” Kozak says in W&L’s response to the lawsuit. “I never made any such statement during an Oct. 5, 2014 presentation or at any other time, nor do I believe that statement is true.”
Title IX is a federal law prohibiting discrimination based on gender in educational institutions that receive federal money. That discrimination includes sexual harassment and sexual assault. But in his lawsuit Doe cites Title IX in accusing the university of discrimination in its action against him.
W&L has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, saying it does not contain enough evidence to support a claim under Title IX.
John Doe also claims in the lawsuit that males at the school are discriminated against because W&L has “created an environment where an accused male student is fundamentally denied due process by being prosecuted through the conduct process under a presumption of guilt.”
The lawsuit also claims that a controversial article in Rolling Stone magazine about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia, published a day before Doe was dismissed, was part of the reason for the expulsion. The article has since been largely discredited.
The university’s response to the lawsuit says the timing of Doe’s dismissal and the publication of the article were coincidental.
W&L spokesman Brian Eckert says the university followed its established policies and procedures in Doe’s case.
“While the university does not comment on the specifics of any matters under litigation, we are confident that we correctly follow our university policies and procedures that were developed to be consistent with mandates of federal law,” Eckert said. “We are committed to treating all students fairly and maintaining a safe environment on our campus.”
The university’s Student Faculty Hearing Board ruled 3-1 on Nov. 20, 2014, that Doe violated the school’s Interim Sexual Harassment and Misconduct Policy. In such cases, the policy requires that the accused be dismissed immediately.
In his lawsuit, John Doe claims he first had consensual sex with the other student, referred to as Jane Doe, on Feb. 8, 2014, in his room at the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity house.
The lawsuit claims that at no point did Jane Doe state that she did not want to have sex, and the two spent the night in John Doe’s room.
John Doe and Jane Doe engaged in sexual intercourse a month after the first interaction, the lawsuit claims.
In July 2014, the lawsuit claims, Jane Doe first told a friend she was sexually assaulted.
On Oct. 13, 2014, according to the lawsuit, Jane Doe contacted Kozak about being sexually assaulted. The suit also claims that she chose to move forward with the complaint against John Doe after learning that he had been accepted into the same study abroad program in Nepal in which she would be participating.
John Doe is seeking monetary compensation, his expulsion to be rescinded and his disciplinary record expunged.
The court has not yet set a date to consider the university’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.