In the wake of the faculty’s recent rejection of the new Discriminatory Harassment and Sexual Misconduct (DHSM) policy, a former Reed student has filed a lawsuit against Reed College alleging gender discrimination on April 14.
In an email sent to the entire student body Wednesday afternoon, Vice President and Dean of Students Services Mike Brody announced the lawsuit. (A separate but similar message was sent to the faculty and staff by Executive Director of Communications and Public Affairs Mandy Heaton.) It alleges that Reed College violated Title IX by discriminating against the plaintiff in the events leading up to and during the course of a Sexual Misconduct Board case. Furthermore, the suit (filed in the U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon) alleges that Reed did not honor its policies outlined in the Guidebook and has defamed the former student by its alleged mishandling of the case.
The plaintiff has filed the lawsuit under the pseudonym of John Doe but is identified as a male student who entered in the fall of 2010, according to a copy of the 58 page lawsuit acquired through Public Access to Court Electronic Records. The lawsuit states that he was expelled in April of 2014 after the Sexual Misconduct Board found that he had violated the Sexual Harassment Policy, the Discriminatory Sexual Harassment Policy, and the Honor Principle. The student is represented by four lawyers from two Portland boutique law firms which specialize in employment law and high-stakes cases.
The suit alleges institutional gender discrimination, questions the legitimacy and propriety of the Sexual Misconduct Board (SMB), and accuses the college of putting its reputation ahead of a fair investigation.
In the suit, John claims that he and a Jane Roe (a pseudonym used in the suit for a current Reed student) were dating and engaged in a group sexual encounter with a recent alumna (named in the suit as AM) at an off-campus party in July of 2013. The suit also claims that the three participants were under the influence of alcohol and MDMA. However, John alleges that later that year in October, Jane physically assaulted him by punching him in the mouth, resulting in Community Safety intervention and the implementation of a no-contact order. It is then that the suit first alleges gender discrimination; it states that “because Jane is female and John is male, Reed did not take any disciplinary action against Jane.”
After John started dating a mutual friend of theirs, the suit alleges that Jane retaliated by claiming that John sexually assaulted her during the threesome in July.
The suit goes on to allege that Reed’s use of the word “survivor” in policy “inescapably presupposes guilt of the accused from the outset,” that the use “demonstrates an institutional climate of bias against the accused.” The suit alleges many more gender biases in the SMB case and questions Reed’s standard of consent, maintaining: “If Reed concluded that Jane was incapable of consenting to sexual activity because she had ingested intoxicants, it should have concluded that John and AM were similarly incapable of consenting to sexual activity. Reed initiated disciplinary proceedings only against John because he is male, and not against Jane or AM because they are female.”
The suit claims that the College did not properly investigate the allegations posed by Jane and that the SMB panel was not properly able to evaluate the evidence due to its inexperience, lack of time, and lack of training. It also alleges that the SMB held a careless attitude — as evidenced by the five misspellings of John’s surname in its findings that he violated the Sexual Harassment Policy, DHSM, and Honor Principle.
John submitted an appeal to the Appeals Board due to excessively severe sanctions, procedural errors, and new evidence, which the Board then denied. Subsequently, he appealed to President John Kroger who allowed a 60 day response period for Jane to submit new evidence without allowing John to do so as well. President Kroger did not overturn the decision and is accused of basing his decision partially on “John’s alleged drug activity, namely that he distributed drugs on campus.”
“Reed and President Kroger needed to appear to the public, as well as to Reed’s students and their parents, that Reed was ‘tough’ on sexual assault allegations brought by female students against male students,” says the suit. John, it alleges, was too a victim of sexual assault.
Ultimately, the suit alleges that “John’s reputation has been irreparably damaged, his academic career has been destroyed, and his economic future has been severely compromised,” as he cannot easily transfer to another school. Additionally, it claims that he has been “deprived of the value of the substantial financial resources invested in his Reed education.”
Reed has not commented on the allegations made in the lawsuit. In his initial email to the student body, Vice President Brody stated that the administration would not comment on details of the suit. When contacted, Vice President Brody declined to comment to the Quest.
Less than an hour after Vice President Brody’s message, The Willamette Week broke the story at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 15.
This is part of an ongoing investigation. The Quest will publish more information as it becomes available.