URBANA — The University of Illinois appears to have granted a degree to a former MBA student accused of sexual assault.

The student was allowed to submit a petition for re-admission and agreed to drop his federal lawsuit against the UI if he was accepted and had the degree conferred by June 30, according to a settlement.

PDF: Settlement of lawsuit between UI, ex-student accused of sex assault The settlement of a federal lawsuit filed by a former MBA student against the University of Illinois over its withholding of his degree after …

He also had to show proof of community service hours and two essays, according to the settlement, a copy of which was obtained by News-Gazette Media through an open-records request.

The student, an Indian citizen identified only as “John Doe,” dropped his lawsuit June 7.

“The matter has been resolved,” said Eric F. Long, his Cleveland-based attorney.

The student was accused of sexual assault after he had participated in his graduation ceremony last year, but before he had received his diploma.

A UI panel found him responsible for sexual assault, and after two appeals, he was eventually dismissed from the UI with the opportunity to petition for re-admission in 2020.

Without a diploma by April 15 of this year, Doe faced termination from his job in Boston, which he said was going to sponsor him for a renewal of his visa.

“He has moved back to India and is exploring opportunities there,” Long said.

UI spokesman Chris Harris said he couldn’t go into specifics because of federal regulations. He provided this statement: “The university often works to amicably resolve legal matters and avoid potential litigation, even if the university is confident it would prevail if further litigation was pursued. This agreement is an example of one of these amicable resolutions.”

After being dismissed from the UI in November 2018, Doe filed a federal lawsuit in March against the university, arguing his due-process rights had been violated, and sought an emergency request to receive his degree, which was denied in April.

When he denied the emergency request, U.S. District Judge Colin Bruce said that if the lawsuit had been filed correctly, it would have had a decent chance at succeeding in its breach-of-contract and due-process claims.

“Based on the parties’ contract promising plaintiff due process in any disciplinary hearing ... plaintiff has shown some likelihood of success on his breach of contract claim,” Bruce wrote.

He cited his analysis last year in another lawsuit from a student dismissed from the UI after being accused of sexual assault.

“Expulsion procedures must provide a student with a meaningful opportunity to be heard,” Bruce wrote at the time.

After a sexual-assault claim is made at the UI, investigators look into the allegations and write a report, which a hearing panel uses to make a decision.

While the UI now allows both the accused and the accuser to present their case at a hearing, this policy was not yet in place when Doe was accused.

But while Bruce said Doe’s due-process and breach-of-contract claims have potential, he said that based on the facts of the case known so far, Doe’s gender-discrimination argument doesn’t.

Doe failed to present any evidence to show “the outcome of his case was erroneous,” Bruce wrote.

In Doe’s case, a panel determined that he went to a fellow MBA student’s apartment, drank with her and had sex with her three times while she was unable to consent.

Doe appealed, and a committee found that the panel didn’t explain its rationale for the first two sexual encounters.

Another panel then determined that the woman was incapacitated during the third encounter, but didn’t have enough evidence for the first two.

“Plaintiff acknowledged that the alleged victim became drunk and confirmed that at one point she began to cry and get emotional. The facts plaintiff alleges ... show that the alleged victim consumed a quantity of alcohol, vomited, fell asleep, regained consciousness, and thereafter plaintiff, knowing these facts, engaged in sexual intercourse with her,” Bruce wrote. “These facts, taken in context with all the other facts alleged in the complaint, do not demonstrate a likelihood of success on plaintiff’s claim that the university’s outcome was erroneous.”

Bruce also said Doe failed to show gender bias against men on the university’s part, as Doe had argued.

“These vague, conclusory and factually unsupported allegations of a general bias on the part of the university are insufficient to support a likelihood of success on plaintiff’s claim that gender bias was a motivating factor behind the alleged erroneous finding in plaintiff’s case,” Bruce wrote.