A student at Vassar College expelled for committing sexual assault has seen his lawsuit against the school dismissed.
According to the Huffington Post, U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams ruled in favor of the private liberal arts school in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. March 31. Abrams determined Vassar was not violating the Title IX gender equity law in kicking Xiaolu Peter Yu off campus.
The decision comes in the midst of a national discourse on how colleges and universities should treat students found responsible of sexual misconduct and assault. It has resulted in several schools across the nation coming under investigation for Title IX and Clery Act complaints and those schools revising their sexual misconduct and assault policies.
Abrams acknowledged a "double standard" may exist in the language of Vassar's policies, but it did not pertain to Yu's case. Abrams concluded Vassar's rules on intoxication "is not biased in gender."
Erin Buzuvis, of the Western New England University School of Law, wrote in an analysis of the ruling that perpetrators of sexually biased crimes are not finding success in
fighting their cases on the grounds that they too had their Title IX rights violated.
"As this case and others demonstrate, plaintiffs challenging university discipline for sexual assault have a difficult time prevailing under Title IX, as there is often very little evidence of gender bias for them to point to," she wrote. "Yet this does not mean universities are free to throw the book at all those accused of sexual assault in order to avoid charges of under-enforcement of Title IX standards (as some Title IX critics may believe)."
Campus sexual assault has proven a difficult crime to adjudicate, but several high-profile cases have shown that ineffective policies and practices only make the matter worse. Now there seems to be a wave of schools toughening up on campus sexual assault and resistance from advocates for those accused.
"Judge Abrams' acknowledgement of a double standard is merely one of the many particularly disturbing aspects of Vassar's treatment of Mr. Yu," Andrew Miltenberg, Yu's attorney, told the HP. "It is difficult to reconcile Judge Abrams' acknowledgement of a double standard while sidestepping the reality of gender discrimination."
