Jury Sides With Student Accused of Sexual Assault

Article here. Excerpt:

'A former Boston College student has won more than $100,000 from his alma mater after a federal jury found the private nonprofit institution mishandled sexual assault allegations against him.

The case is significant in that it is the first sex assault lawsuit against a university to reach a jury trial since 2011, when the Obama administration rewrote the rules for how college officials should investigate and arbitrate sexual violence on campuses.

Some activists who believe the Obama rules lacked due process for accused students have seized on the Boston College ruling as validation that these campus proceedings are unfair and potentially ruinous of the college and professional careers of those accused.

“The jury's clear verdict here suggests that, as with so many situations involving both free speech and due process, universities are unable to defend in public what they try to do in private,” said Samantha Harris, vice president of policy research at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil liberties watchdog in academe.'