{"id":40997,"date":"2017-11-24T03:00:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T08:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=40997"},"modified":"2017-11-23T09:49:30","modified_gmt":"2017-11-23T14:49:30","slug":"rensselaer-polytechnic-institute-makes-title-ix-applicable-to-non-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/11\/24\/rensselaer-polytechnic-institute-makes-title-ix-applicable-to-non-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute makes Title IX applicable to non-students"},"content":{"rendered":"

I only know about Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute due to the model railway club on campus, but the school should be more widely known now, if only as an object of derision<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Today, we\u2019re writing about RPI\u2019s attempt to subject a student from a different school<\/em> to its disciplinary process \u2014 an attempt we\u2019re only learning about because a court had to order RPI to stop violating the rights of John Doe<\/a> (who used a pseudonym in his lawsuit). In a Nov. 6 ruling in Doe\u2019s favor, a New York state court judge deemed RPI\u2019s conduct \u201carbitrary\u201d and \u201ccapricious,\u201d and annulled RPI\u2019s finding that Doe had sexually assaulted an RPI student.<\/p>\n

This story begins in 2015 when Doe, a graduate student at a school that is not<\/em> RPI, was in a relationship with an RPI student. Doe had never<\/em> been a student at RPI. His only connection to RPI was his relationship with an RPI student. In the summer of 2016, after the relationship ended, the RPI student filed a Title IX complaint with RPI against Doe. As the court would later observe, the alleged conduct at issue in this case \u201ctook place off campus and was not in anyway (sic<\/em>) related to an educational program or activity of RPI,\u201d and that RPI \u201cwould have learned this from the complaint itself and statements made by the complainant.\u201d Despite this, RPI launched an of Doe and interviewed him. Per the court, the interview constituted \u201ca clear violation of [Doe\u2019s] constitutional rights.\u201d <\/p>\n

It is not difficult to see why the interview raised concerns with the court. First, RPI conveniently failed to tell Doe why it needed to interview him in advance. Doe didn\u2019t find out about the purpose of the meeting until just before it started, when RPI\u2019s interviewers gave him some documents and told him he was the subject of misconduct investigation. If that weren\u2019t enough to raise due process concerns, it was also \u201cobvious\u201d to Judge Raymond J. Elliott that there was \u201ca language and a possible cultural barrier\u201d between Doe and RPI\u2019s interviewers. So RPI hauled Doe in for questioning without telling him why, sprung a serious charge on him, and failed to ensure that he understood what was going on.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

But to say the court generally sided with Doe would be an understatement.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, the court ruled that RPI went too far in asserting jurisdiction over Doe and subjecting him to its disciplinary process. The court held that RPI should not have interviewed him or included his statement in its report. The remedy in this case was voiding Doe\u2019s statement, and because RPI relied on Doe\u2019s statement, the court annulled the report. The court also found that RPI had \u201cno legal authority or obligation … to report, inform, publish or share any information or documentation with [Doe\u2019s] academic institution regarding this alleged incident, and that [RPI\u2019s] determination that they have the authority to do so is arbitrary and capricious.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I only know about Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute due to the model railway club on campus, but the school should be more widely known now, if only as an object of derision: Today, we\u2019re writing about RPI\u2019s attempt to subject a student from a different school to its disciplinary process \u2014 an attempt we\u2019re only learning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,79,13],"tags":[52,343,384,764],"class_list":["post-40997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-education","category-usa","tag-absurd","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-newyork","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-aFf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40998,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40997\/revisions\/40998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}