This case was reported in The Statesman here. You can also read the accuser’s post about the incident at Her Campus. We’ve also added this case to our Title IX Legal Database.

Much like the recent lawsuit versus Florida Southwestern, this one involves a male and female who accuse each other of doing the same things, with a few noticeable differences. In this suit, John Doe claimed he was so drunk that “BG,” his accuser, violated the school’s code of conduct by having sex with him. BG, however, claimed that Doe’s being drunk during intercourse was no excuse for him switching from vaginal to anal sex without her consent, even if he claimed he was too drunk to notice or remember.

Note that if female students claim to be too drunk to remember and male students even hint that it was merely possible that the female complainant was intoxicated to that degree, that is often enough for the male to be found responsible. Here, by contrast, the male was found responsible despite being the one to be severely drunk.

Per Doe’s complaint, in addition to filing a complaint with the school, BG also posted his name and image on social media where she accused him of being a rapist and incited others to assault Doe.

The suit alleges that Doe was not allowed to sufficiently cross-examine BG because many of the questions he submitted to Tracy Haas (the Title IX Review Panel Hearing Officer) to be asked of BG were disregarded. Doe was also not allowed to question a witness (“AH”) at all, and claims this is due entirely to BG’s explicit insistence.

The suit further alleges the following:

Doe, but not BG, was prohibited from presenting evidence The hearing officers acted as advisors to BG during the hearing rather than neutral agents The school did not find BG responsible for having sex with him when he was too drunk to consent, which is a violation of SBU’s code of conduct The school found Doe responsible “on the basis of a purported admission that he never made”

We’ll be following this lawsuit and seeing how it develops.

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