Ninth Circuit Adopts ‘Simpler’ Method for Accused Student Claims

Article here. Excerpt:

'The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit delivered a win for students accused of sexual misconduct on July 29, reinforcing the use of a “far simpler standard” for judges to determine whether colleges discriminated against these students based on their gender while investigating them for sexual assault or harassment.

Three federal circuit courts have now adopted the standard of “plausible inference,” as it is called, to rule on cases where a student claims their institution conducted a biased investigation against them using procedures developed under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law that prohibits such discrimination at federally funded institutions. Under the standard, accused students must only “raise a plausible inference that the university discriminated” against them, which is less demanding than standards used in other circuits for similar claims.'