Has this been expected by the university we all love?
Jon Alger is named in the court records and three other unnamed university employees...Indifference?
Any lawyers out there willing to explain what will likely happen?
Can JMU take the "JMU way" defense and simply refuse to communicate until the problem goes away?
(03-06-2015 11:31 AM)Purplehazed Wrote: [ -> ]Has this been expected by the university we all love?
Jon Alger is named in the court records and three other unnamed university employees...Indifference?
Any lawyers out there willing to explain what will likely happen?
Can JMU take the "JMU way" defense and simply refuse to communicate until the problem goes away?
Not a surprise, but this is precisely why universities should not be in the business of adjudicating crimes, and the federal government has put schools in a completely untenable situation. We have a judicial system for a reason. How is JMU supposed to adjudicate alleged events that happened off-campus and almost 1,000 miles away - with no subpoena power, no ability to issue warrants for gathering evidence, no ability to compel testimony from witnesses, etc?
This will be an interesting suit to follow, actually. 99% of these suits are brought by the "accused" who had their due process rights trampled while they were expelled or otherwise punished in these kangaroo courts.
Make no mistake, these three dudes are douchebags and deserve to have the ever living crap beaten out of them. But I honestly don't know what JMU (or any other school) is supposed to do with these cases. They're going to get sued one way or the other every time.
instead of just yelling out loud so people can hear you, you could share a few facts or background with your ramblings.
Sarah Butters filed a lawsuit under Title IX over the handling of her sexual assault case last year. Article in todays DNR
http://www.dnronline.com/article/ex_duke...ng_college
(03-06-2015 11:46 AM)91Alum Wrote: [ -> ] (03-06-2015 11:31 AM)Purplehazed Wrote: [ -> ]Has this been expected by the university we all love?
Jon Alger is named in the court records and three other unnamed university employees...Indifference?
Any lawyers out there willing to explain what will likely happen?
Can JMU take the "JMU way" defense and simply refuse to communicate until the problem goes away?
Not a surprise, but this is precisely why universities should not be in the business of adjudicating crimes, and the federal government has put schools in a completely untenable situation. We have a judicial system for a reason. How is JMU supposed to adjudicate alleged events that happened off-campus and almost 1,000 miles away - with no subpoena power, no ability to issue warrants for gathering evidence, no ability to compel testimony from witnesses, etc?
This will be an interesting suit to follow, actually. 99% of these suits are brought by the "accused" who had their due process rights trampled while they were expelled or otherwise punished in these kangaroo courts.
Make no mistake, these three dudes are douchebags and deserve to have the ever living crap beaten out of them. But I honestly don't know what JMU (or any other school) is supposed to do with these cases. They're going to get sued one way or the other every time.
Agreed. This was expected...has been in the works for awhile. I have a feeling this is going to get a bit of attention also and may set a precedent on how future cases are handled. Like you said, JMU is supposed to magically come up with a fitting ruling when they have no power of a real court. If they expel all 3 of them (which by the time the appeals finished, two had already graduated), they get sued by the guys. If they do nothing to the guys (which is basically what they did) then they get sued by the girl. There were certainly things JMU could have done better, but a case like this seems a bit strong, especially considering her police officer father told her not to file charges with the police.
One thing this does lead me to wonder is at what point Alger was made aware of the situation if he's named. Also, I have a feeling he knows what he's doing in situations like this given his background.
(03-06-2015 11:47 AM)Deez Nuts Wrote: [ -> ]instead of just yelling out loud so people can hear you, you could share a few facts or background with your ramblings.
Sarah Butters filed a lawsuit under Title IX over the handling of her sexual assault case last year. Article in todays DNR
http://www.dnronline.com/article/ex_duke...ng_college
thanks for the coherent posting. purplehazed is turning into dukeman with these threads that have no actual meaningful words or sources behind them.
this quote from the article was interesting from the jmu spokesman.
"To date the university has been prevented from sharing its side of the story due to federal privacy law constraints. Now that the plaintiff has filed a civil lawsuit, the university will be at liberty to share the facts and circumstances in the case through the normal channels of litigation in due course"
This lawsuit will work out in JMU's favor. We will now be able to defend ourselves. This is good news.
(03-06-2015 12:18 PM)TXGiant Wrote: [ -> ]This lawsuit will work out in JMU's favor. We will now be able to defend ourselves. This is good news.
there's so many ways this could shake out. I for one think it'll get settled out of court or dropped altogether and the problem at the core of the lawsuit - how colleges handle cases of sexual assault - will get kicked down the road.
(03-06-2015 12:41 PM)Deez Nuts Wrote: [ -> ] (03-06-2015 12:18 PM)TXGiant Wrote: [ -> ]This lawsuit will work out in JMU's favor. We will now be able to defend ourselves. This is good news.
there's so many ways this could shake out. I for one think it'll get settled out of court or dropped altogether and the problem at the core of the lawsuit - how colleges handle cases of sexual assault - will get kicked down the road.
While I agree (and hope) none of the charges actually stick, I do hope it at least advances the conversation of sexual assault at universities. Buuuut that's pretty doubtful.
This whole thing is total BS and now they are looking for a money grab/pay-day at JMU's expense.
This young lady contacted her father and they made the conscious decision to not file suit in FL where this event occurred.
Not sure what anyone expects JMU to do ----- But JMU (and most other universities) open themselves up to this type of suit by trying to adjudicate sexual assault crimes via a kangaroo court of judicial affairs. JMU (and all other universities) should stick to handling honor code violations, parking tickets, and minor theft. When felony charges are involved and/or sexual assault allegations direct these situations to HPD and have someone willing to go with the individual and document thoroughly that they declined JMUs assistance.
I'm trying to be sympathetic to her, as we should be with all people dealing with what may be a very difficult, even horrific occurrence. But the details in the article make it harder. She was told she'd have to relate what she says happened multiple times, and didn't want to? I can understand that, but I can understand the university deciding that, as no criminal charges were pending and no civil suit had been filed, that pursuing action against the men would be difficult. And that's "indifference"? I can't imagine how difficult this must be for someone facing this, but how can you expect the school to take you at your word and go from there to expel students? At what point did JMU have the video evidence? It's not clear from the story.
(03-06-2015 11:47 AM)Deez Nuts Wrote: [ -> ]instead of just yelling out loud so people can hear you, you could share a few facts or background with your ramblings.
Sarah Butters filed a lawsuit under Title IX over the handling of her sexual assault case last year. Article in todays DNR
http://www.dnronline.com/article/ex_duke...ng_college
Thank you Deez. We are safe now, you have policed the internet once again.
All we need now is another 25,000 word response from Longhorn with APA correct citations.
(03-06-2015 01:31 PM)ShadyP Wrote: [ -> ]This whole thing is total BS and now they are looking for a money grab/pay-day at JMU's expense.
This young lady contacted her father and they made the conscious decision to not file suit in FL where this event occurred.
Not sure what anyone expects JMU to do ----- But JMU (and most other universities) open themselves up to this type of suit by trying to adjudicate sexual assault crimes via a kangaroo court of judicial affairs. JMU (and all other universities) should stick to handling honor code violations, parking tickets, and minor theft. When felony charges are involved and/or sexual assault allegations direct these situations to HPD and have someone willing to go with the individual and document thoroughly that they declined JMUs assistance.
I agree, she should definitely be dealing with the Panama City police and courts. I guess she figured there's a better chance of an easy score with a settlement from the school, I hope she doesn't get a cent.
(03-06-2015 11:46 AM)91Alum Wrote: [ -> ] (03-06-2015 11:31 AM)Purplehazed Wrote: [ -> ]Has this been expected by the university we all love?
Jon Alger is named in the court records and three other unnamed university employees...Indifference?
Any lawyers out there willing to explain what will likely happen?
Can JMU take the "JMU way" defense and simply refuse to communicate until the problem goes away?
Not a surprise, but this is precisely why universities should not be in the business of adjudicating crimes, and the federal government has put schools in a completely untenable situation. We have a judicial system for a reason. How is JMU supposed to adjudicate alleged events that happened off-campus and almost 1,000 miles away - with no subpoena power, no ability to issue warrants for gathering evidence, no ability to compel testimony from witnesses, etc?
This will be an interesting suit to follow, actually. 99% of these suits are brought by the "accused" who had their due process rights trampled while they were expelled or otherwise punished in these kangaroo courts.
Make no mistake, these three dudes are douchebags and deserve to have the ever living crap beaten out of them. But I honestly don't know what JMU (or any other school) is supposed to do with these cases. They're going to get sued one way or the other every time.
Spot on.
This is completely nuts. The only thing these turds might be "guilty" of, from my understanding- admittedly limited- is some kind of harassment type thing once they returned to Campus, by sending the video around or further showing it. There was no "assault" in Harrisonburg, so who has any jurisdiction here? What guidance was given on making the decisions that were made? Anyone consult a criminal lawyer here, a retired judge of some sort?
This is a suit looking for a settlement.
Interesting side note- Harrisonburg is red-lined as a misspelling on CSNBBS.
I could read the article yesterday, but couldn't see it today. From my recollection her main complaint against JMU is that they failed to prevent continued sharing of the video and continued harassing behavior once the students returned to campus. JMU obviously has a duty to protect its students, but the question will be how far does it have to go and when did it know what was going on.
I don't know if it will be as open and shut as some think. JMU seems confident in the outcome so I would have to think they have pretty good evidence that they did all they could, but they're in a difficult spot. In a negligence case the actions of every employee in failing to act creates liability for JMU. What if the part time night security guard got wind of the video being passed around campus (admittedly harassing behavior) while he was on duty and failed to report it to his superior? Did his actions breach the duty JMU had to the female student?
The other side of the balancing act is that there's a limited amount of things JMU can do to actually stop the behavior. Even if they had kicked these kids out of school immediately, it would be impossible to stop email, Facebook and Twitter messages.
It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
Just came across this online (dated yesterday), and JMU features prominently in this campus assault article. We've hashed this out here for months, but it's an interesting perspective of the Catch-22 universities are in. I'm not sure I was aware of the lawsuit brought by a suspended male student, though I was aware of the other one (by the female). So that's two lawsuits, one from each side, just at JMU.
And I'm not just posting this to make myself look like Nostradamus from my March 6 post above. ;-)
Link
Quote:"A university is not a court of law and the same rules that apply in criminal cases do not apply to student conduct proceedings," said a spokesman for James Madison University. "No matter how the proceedings are handled, at least one of the parties will likely be unhappy with the results and may choose to go to federal court."
The spokesman was specifically referring to a lawsuit by an accused and suspended student who claims, as many accused students do, that his due process rights were violated. The student, named as John Doe in his lawsuit, claimed the university meted out its unnecessarily harsh punishment — he has been suspended from the university through the year 2020 — after the university received a backlash over a previous sexual assault allegation.
The previous case involved a student alleging a gang rape over spring break. In that case, the school took 372 days to expel the men, and even then the expulsion kicked in only after they graduated.
John Doe JMU is not alone in alleging that a university reacted harshly to reports that they were not doing enough to help sexual assault victims."
If JMU wins the lawsuit, can we go FBS?
Wa Po article from last month. Was this posted somewhere else? Different situation than the JMU case in that it talks about the lawsuits filed by the males who claim to have been unfairly treated in rape allegation cases. But does talk about how schools can poorly handle rape allegation cases (Duke lacrosse, UVA frat, etc). Didn't want to start a new thread so put here.
"
Montana quarterback receives $245K settlement for university’s ‘unfair and biased’ rape investigation
...As of November, more than 50 pending lawsuits have been filed nationwide by men who say they were unfairly expelled from college after being accused of sexual assault, according to Inside Higher Ed....."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morn...ge%2Fstory
Add Jack Montague as another soon to be lawsuit. Seems like it will be a slam dunk for him.
No seriously, he is bound to get more than $250K. The below details ARE NOT DISTUBED, the woman admitted to the below during the initial investigation:
Quote:On the first occasion, the woman joined Jack in bed and stayed the night.
On the second occasion, she entered his bed voluntarily, removed all of her clothes and, during the night, woke him to perform oral sex.
On the third occasion, she joined him in bed, voluntarily took off all her clothing, and they had sexual intercourse by consent.
On the fourth occasion, she joined him in bed, voluntarily removed all of her clothes, and they had sexual intercourse. Then they got up, left the room and went separate ways. Later that same night, she reached out to him to meet up, then returned to his room voluntarily, and spent the rest of the night in his bed with him.
The only thing in dispute is if the 4th time was actually consensual or not.
Well, the judge lowered to effing boom on us. In "what might be the largest award in any due process case", Judge Joel C. Hoppe awarded $850,000 to the male student whose due process rights got stampeded by Johnny boy's kangaroo court.
Oh wait, there's more: "JMU aggressively litigated this case; that record haunted them in fee stage."
As a taxpayer, alumnus, donor and father, this pisses me off. Can't say we're not making a national name for ourselves, I guess.
You're doing a heck of a job, fellas