With so many options to report sexual misconduct on college campuses, why do so many students go away from the process unhappy with the outcome?
Nancy Derringer addresses that question today in Bridge Magazine:
At the University of Michigan, a rape complaint against a former Wolverine placekicker, Brendan Gibbons, strung out for nearly the entire period of Gibbons’ enrollment at the university. Promptly reported, backed up with a police investigation, Gibbons nevertheless stayed on campus and continued to play football until his eligibility had nearly expired – at which point he was expelled from U-M, raising criticism that the school was more interested in preserving Gibbons’s athletic career than in seeking justice for his accuser.
The incident is one reason U-M is under federal investigation for its sexual-misconduct procedures. University officials will not discuss the Gibbons case, citing privacy concerns, but a Central Student Government Task Force found that the university “failed to explain” the four-year delay in handing down Gibbons’s punishment, and that just-fired football coach Bracy Hoke “knowingly issued false (public) statements in December 2013 concerning the (eligibility) status of Gibbons.”
At the other end of the spectrum, former U-M student Drew Sterrett, now living in New York, is bringing suit against the university, claiming the school’s investigation into whether he sexually assaulted a female student (he contends the sex was consensual) so violated his rights of due process that he found it impossible to stay in Ann Arbor and may have poisoned his hopes of becoming an engineer, even at another school.
The suit contends Sterrett’s college career and reputation evaporated in an Orwellian succession of university hearings notable for their lack of due process. He said he was first contacted on summer break, and was asked to speak to an OSCR investigator via Skype before he even knew what the complaint was about. His Skype interview was conducted with no lawyer present, and when he asked whether he should delay the interview to obtain an attorney, he was told that the investigation would continue without his cooperation and “in any event decisions would be made in the next several days,” the suit claims.
Additional coverage by Derringer today:
