TROY — A Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute student is suing the school over his suspension for sexual misconduct, claiming he is the victim of a disciplinary process that “was directly and indirectly designed to discriminate against male students on the basis of their sex.”

The suit in federal Northern District court by “John Doe,” also contends the school has created a disciplinary “environment and culture in which a male student’s word is less credible than a female student’s word simply because he is accused of sexual misconduct.”

The lawsuit contends this is due in part to the RPI administration's attempts to reverse its prior reputation for going too easy on sex offenses at the school, which has a majority male student body.

RPI is not alone among higher education institutions in facing such a lawsuit. Observers say colleges and universities nationwide are being hit by suits alleging that male students are increasingly being found guilty of misconduct without being allowed adequate defenses.

“Schools often do a terrible job of adjudicating these cases,” said Samantha Harris, a lawyer and vice president of procedural advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which follows First Amendment and other civil rights issues on college campuses.

The RPI case started when an unidentified male sophomore, known as John Doe, was suspended in May, with instructions to stay off campus until 2020. He was found by a school disciplinary panel to have groped, choked and improperly kissed a female student in September.

In addition to denying those charges, the suit alleges that, once the process began, he was hit with false charge of rape in a separate matter, which was later dropped.

Moreover, Doe faced his initial charge after he and his unidentified accuser had engaged in a heated discussion in their debate club over the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, said his lawyer, Scott Iseman of O’Connell and Aronowitz. There have been enough cases like this that the law firm has a special student defense unit.

RPI spokeswoman Richie Hunter, in a prepared statement, said: "At Rensselaer, it is our policy to ensure that our living and learning environments are free from all forms of harassment, discrimination, or retaliation for all of our faculty, staff, and students."

She added, "(t)he Institute takes any allegation of harassment, discrimination, or sexual misconduct seriously; in order to protect the privacy of involved parties, we do not comment on individual cases."

Like many of these cases, the complaint centers in part on Title IX, the federal law designed to guard against sex discrimination. But rather than alleging the females’ rights are being violated, they contend the men are being wronged.

The case against RPI also alleges that there has been a quadrupling of such allegations between 2015 and 2018 at the Troy school and that the overwhelming number of these allegations are against men. However, the suit does not offer specific examples.

And while some of that may be a backlash against the increase of #MeToo complaints, Harris said lawsuits about such campus cases have actually been rising since 2011.

At that time, the Obama Administration issued a memo to college and universities nationwide suggesting they need to do a better job of combating sexual abuse on campus.

“A lot of schools responded by taking shortcuts,” Harris said.

Her group has seen 500 lawsuits similar to the RPI case, since 2011.



Another local lawsuit, brought by a former University at Albany student who is contesting his expulsion for sexual assault, is in state appellate division court. This lawsuit contends that the school’s Title IX coordinator improperly concluded on her own that the alleged victim was incapable of consent, when that determination should have come from another source.

Like many such cases, the idea of consent is key since the alleged victims as well as perpetrators may be drunk or high, therefore incapable of giving consent to have sex.

And like the RPI case, there are issues of proof as well as surveillance. The former UAlbany student tried unsuccessfully to present a video of a key meeting with school officials. A trial court ruled against him but he is appealing his case.

UAlbany spokesman Jordan Carleo-Evangelist in a prepared statement said “as a matter of practice, the University does not comment on pending litigation. Speaking generally, however, UAlbany is confident in its process to fully and fairly investigate and adjudicate all student conduct matters, including those involving Title IX.”

He added, “(a) student who is the subject of a conduct hearing has access to all the evidence/information being considered by the Conduct Board.”

In the John Doe case against RPI, Iseman is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an injunction that would let his client, who lives in Wisconsin, return to school in the upcoming fall semester rather than waiting until 2020.

They too, have raised questions of surveillance and other forms of proof. “We wanted them to preserve footage” Iseman said of police camera tapes they believe show his client and the woman walking peacefully through Troy when he was supposedly groping her. But city officials said the cameras weren’t working properly.

rkarlin@timesunion.com • 518-454-5758 • @RickKarlinTU