College facing trial for branding innocent student 'rapist'

Story here. Excerpt:

'A federal judge has ruled that a series of claims by a student-athlete against his school will go to trial after he was branded a rapist during a campus hearing even though a local prosecutor who investigated said the case should be dropped.

A ruling from U.S. District Judge Arthur Spiegel rejected the request by Xavier University to toss the entire case. It ordered a trial on claims by Dezmine Wells regarding breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, libel through injury to his personal reputation, his profession reputation and with malice, negligence and discrimination.

The school released only a statement on the dispute.

“We’re pleased that the court dismissed a number of the claims at this point,” the university said. “The court’s decision was based solely on the facts as alleged by Mr. Wells and his lawyers in their amended complaint, as is required by court rules at this early stage in the litigation. After the actual facts are disclosed to the court, we are confident that the result will vindicate Xavier.”

Catherine Sevcenko, an attorney, commented on the website of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education that Wells was expelled for sexual assault “in spite of the local prosecutor’s public statements that the evidence did not support the accuser’s allegations.”
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WND has reported several times on the federal campaign to have campus disciplinary boards determine guilt based on a preponderance of the evidence, which is far lower that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” in America’s criminal justice system.
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FIRE said the Department of Education was trying to expand its reach by “addressing issues relating to campus discipline which cannot fairly be categorized as campus safety and reporting requirements.”

FIRE said early drafts of the law had language that would have required the “preponderance” standard, but that language intentionally was removed by Congress.

The draft rules, however, proposed by the bureaucracy, “circumvent congressional intent by including a provision that states, ‘an institution’s disciplinary proceedings are prompt, fair, and impartial if the proceedings … comply with guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.’”

“In other words,” said FIRE, “the draft regulations would effectively codify use of the preponderance of the evidence standard in campus hearings, despite such a requirement having been considered and rejected by Congress.”'

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