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John Kroger is the president of Reed College, an elite liberal arts college in Southeast Portland now being sued by a former student identified only as "John Doe."

(Jamie Francis/The Oregonian)

A former Reed College student accuses the school of wrongly kicking him out and falsely labeling him a sex offender after campus officials learned he had engaged in ecstasy-addled threesomes with a former girlfriend.

The man, identified as "John Doe" in court papers, filed a lawsuit this week in Portland's U.S. District Court that accuses Reed of defamation, breach of contract, and wrongful expulsion under Title IX, among other allegations.

The college's investigation and a subsequent hearing by its Sexual Misconduct Board were biased against Doe as a matter of gender, the lawsuit alleges, and Reed President John Kroger, Oregon's former attorney general, accepted Roe's statements "at face value and granted her the presumption of truth because she is female."

Doe accuses his ex-girlfriend - identified in court papers as "Jane Roe" - of lying to school officials about their consensual relationship and he alleges that The Reed Institute - better known as Reed College - railroaded him through a disciplinary process intended only to expel him.

Reed spokesman Kevin Myers pointed out Thursday that the school's disciplinary matters are handled case by case: "We follow the evidence. If it's more likely than not the infraction happened, the student is found responsible and sanctioned accordingly."

The 58-page lawsuit reads like a potboiler, offering Doe's account of sex, drugs and booze bacchanals that appear to have highlighted his first years at the elite liberal arts college in Southeast Portland.

Doe met Roe at a campus party in September 2012 and began dating exclusively that November. They were sexually intimate, spent most nights in Doe's apartment and had easy access to drugs and alcohol at Reed, according to Doe's lawsuit.

On July 25, 2013, Doe and Roe - then boyfriend and girlfriend - took part in what the lawsuit describes as fully consensual group sex with another young woman (a Reed graduate still attending classes there). The trio all took ecstasy, the suit alleges, noting that this wasn't Doe and Roe's first group sex under the influence.

Roe wasn't incapacitated, and she willingly and enthusiastically had sex with the other woman (identified in court papers as "AM"), telling her she was "hot" and inviting Doe to have sex with her, the lawsuit alleges.

"At no point during the group sexual activities did (Roe) ever tell (Doe) or AM to stop," Doe alleges. "She did not exhibit any apprehension, fear or hesitancy."

Not quite a month later, Roe wrote to Doe on Facebook about wanting to have sex with another attractive female student at Reed, shooting him a message that read, "(We) have to make her a sex goal this upcoming semester."

But in time, the lawsuit alleges, they became jealous of one another and accused each other of playing around. The two began to argue.

"Typical of 19 and 20 year olds, each engaged in overheated and hurtful name-calling and other rhetoric directed at the other," according to the complaint.

Doe's lawsuit alleges that Roe stole his cellphone to review his texts with other women and blocked their phone numbers. Another time, he alleges, he texted her to say he didn't want to see her, so she handcuffed herself to a friend and forced the friend to take her to his apartment.

Things got ugly on Oct. 26, 2013, when they got drunk, argued and Roe punched him in the jaw, the suit claims.

Both Doe and Roe filed reports with campus security, and school officials responded by instituting a mutual no-contact order.

About that time, Doe broke things off with Roe and began dating one of her friends. They tried to keep it from Roe, but she found out. Meanwhile, according to the lawsuit, rumors circulated that Doe was showing a homemade sex video that he and Roe had made when they were dating.

In March 2014, the lawsuit alleges, Roe told campus safety director Gary Granger that Doe had violated their no-contact order and that she had heard a rumor that Doe had shown their sex tape to someone else without her consent, according to the complaint.

Roe then falsely claimed to Granger and Assistant Dean Rowan Frost that Doe had coerced her into having sex with him and "AM" on the night of July 25, 2013, the lawsuit alleges. But she didn't want to file a police report.

Granger opened an investigation of the matter on March 11, 2014, but failed to inform Doe of the allegations until April 3, 2014, more than 20 days later than Reed's campus procedures required, according to Doe's complaint.

"Reed - concerned by years of reports criticizing the school for its permissive culture and purportedly weak sexual assault policies - responded to (Roe)'s accusations with a series of arbitrary, discriminatory and illegal actions directed toward a predetermined outcome: (Doe)'s expulsion from Reed," the lawsuit alleges.

Doe complains that Reed officials neither investigated nor disciplined Roe or AM for their group sex or drug use; and they didn't discipline Roe for the punch that left him with loose teeth and a bloodied mouth.

The suit accuses the college of violating Doe's due process.

Reed spokesman Myers declined to comment on Doe's due process claims or discuss the substance of the arguments laid out in the lawsuit.

The complaint asks Reed to correct Doe's academic and disciplinary record, remove any findings and charges against him, and immediately allow him to enroll at Reed to complete his degree, among other things.

Doe, who lives in New York, seeks unspecified damages.

-- Bryan Denson

503-294-7614; @Bryan_Denson