Yale has been sued by 3 men claiming gender discrimination - and it could change the way universities address sexual assault
- Yale has been sued by three men who claim Yale's sexual-misconduct committee discriminated against them based on their gender or denied them their due-process rights.
- The university has also been the subject of two Department of Education investigations since 2011.
- The threat of lawsuits may contribute to the severity of punishments Yale issues for sexual misconduct findings.
Yale University has been the subject of three lawsuits and two federal investigations since 2011 that center on the university's ability to examine claims of sexual misconduct.
The school is currently facing two lawsuits (another recently ended in an undisclosed settlement). All three by men who say Yale's sexual-misconduct committee discriminated against them based on their gender or denied them their due-process rights.
The highest-profile case is a suit filed by Jack Montague, a former varsity men's basketball captain expelled during his senior-year second semester for "penetration without consent," according to Yale. Montague's expulsion helped mar a historic men's basketball season for the Yale Bulldogs, ahead of the NCAA Tournament. The suit asks Yale to reinstate Montague as a student in good standing and award him monetary damages. The case is still in litigation.
One of the men who filed a federal suit against Yale simultaneously filed a complaint with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, alleging Yale discriminated against him in a misconduct hearing because of his gender. In April 2017 under the Trump Administration's guidance, the OCR launched an investigation into his claims. The investigation ended in September as a result of rule prohibiting the OCR from investigating claims in litigation in federal court, the Yale Daily News reported.
Yale was previously the subject of a 2011 OCR investigation under the Obama administration for claims the university failed to eliminate a "hostile sexual environment on campus."
These lawsuits, and the potential for more, pose a threat to Yale.
"Yale has some very good cost-benefit-analysis lawyers who talk about the school's liability," Colby Bruno, a senior legal counsel at the Victim Rights Law Center, told Business Insider.
AP Photo/Tony GutierrezJack Montague.Bruno said that the threat of lawsuits may contribute to the severity of punishments Yale issues for sexual misconduct findings.
"When you are a school and you are looking into mitigation you think, 'You know what? What's the likelihood that she's gonna sue, and what's the likelihood that he's gonna sue?'" Bruno said. "And the likelihood is more that he's going to sue. So you get them off the campus for a little bit and then you let them back on."
Business Insider found 15 cases where Yale issued a finding of "penetration without consent," "nonconsensual sex," or "intercourse without consent." Yale has issued five expulsions. The 10 other instances received suspension, probation, or a written reprimand.
But Yale's punishments for findings of non-consensual sex may also be related to the "preponderance of evidence" standard that colleges use. The standard - evidence that means there's a 51% likelihood, which is used for many types of claims in civil lawsuits - is lower than required in court for criminal cases.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos believes college sexual misconduct systems discriminate against men because they deny the men due-process rights. "Washington's push to require schools to establish these quasi-legal structures to address sexual misconduct comes up short for far too many students," DeVos said in a speech in December, before pledging to dismantle the current rules.
For its part, Yale says punishments are doled out on a case-by-case basis. "Our decision makers work hard and conscientiously to calibrate discipline appropriate for each case, taking into account all relevant factors, while upholding the principle that these are educational processes," it said in a statement to Business Insider. (The full statement is available here.)