Firm Comments on College Campus Sexual Misconduct: When a Kiss is Not Just a Kiss

Article here. Excerpt:

'A recent Association of American Universities Campus Climate Survey reported that one in four undergraduate female students have experienced unwanted sexual contact sometime during their college experience. Overall, the study reported that 23 percent of undergraduate women at the participating universities said they had been physically forced — or threatened with force — into nonconsensual sexual contact or incapacitated when it happened. That included activities ranging from sexual touching or kissing to actual sexual intercourse.

Kimberly C. Lau, a partner at the law firm of Warshaw Burstein in New York City, has spent years defending students accused of sexual misconduct in over 40 cases. She has represented both male and female students who have faced life-altering consequences of expulsion, suspension, and branding as a sexual offender for kissing, touching and even requesting too many social media connections.
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Another private university found a male student responsible of sexual misconduct (stalking) for sending multiple Instagram follow requests to a female student's Instagram account, and for a single incident of staring at the female student on campus. The male student's disciplinary record now reflects "sexual misconduct" and he was suspended for one year.

As these campus sexual assault cases obtain legal representation by the accused, they often settle before reaching the courtroom. Several colleges had to settle with the accused male student, including Duke, University of Virginia, Amherst, University of Michigan, University of Connecticut, Brown,Occidental College, CU Boulder and others.  In the last five years, at least 70 male students accused of sexual misconduct brought lawsuits against their schools, alleging that their treatment violated their contractual or due process rights or was so biased as to constitute sex discrimination against them.

"Herein lies the problem with campus tribunals determining if a crime of sexual misconduct was committed – students can be wrongly accused because the accusation becomes the proof or, simply, because the definitions are too broad and too ambiguous; students can be accused months or even years after the incident; and those wrongly accused are denied due process," continued Ms. Lau.  "The campus culture is that the accused is guilty and alcohol precludes the victim from cognitively giving consent to an inebriated act of sexual activity."'