A. The Notice of Allegations of Sexual Misconduct Violations in College:
What do I do after reading a Notice of Allegations (NOA) for college student sexual misconduct? You take it very seriously. You ONLY talk to your parents and then you hire us or someone else as your lawyers. What you should be wary of is answering or obeying what the NOA tells you to do without talking to lawyers like us first.
What is a Notice of Allegations (NOA) for college student sexual misconduct? The Notice of Allegations is your roadmap. It is your guarantee under Federal and State law, including Title IX, that you find out what the problem is from the start. Thus, the NOA should tell you exactly what you are already charged with. The Notice of Allegations, just as a parking ticket, or a Grand Jury Indictment, tells you that your school believes there is a significant likelihood that you violated the school’s sexual misconduct or sexual harassment policy, and that you need to lawyer up.
What should a Notice of Allegations (NOA) for college student sexual misconduct say? The Notice of Allegations varies from school to school, some, for example Princeton University’s are very detailed, others barely tell you to come in because someone filed a sex-related complaint against you. Legally, we demand that the NOA tell you exactly what your school thinks you did, and what your school thinks that means--from sexually assaulting another student, to stalking and everything in between. A bare bones NOA is not an NOA we accept.
Why does the Title IX office send Notice of Allegations (NOA) for college student sexual misconduct? By the time you receive a Notice of Allegations from your school’s Title IX coordinator she has already talked to a woman who says you assaulted or harassed her. By the time you receive the NOA that woman already talked to a lawyer. By the time you receive the NOA the school has already made sure to document that you, somehow, can be expelled. The Title IX office then sends you the NOA so you can start to defend your case.
What does the Title IX office do after sending me a Notice of Allegations (NOA) for college student sexual misconduct? After sending you an NOA the Title IX office will have investigators or coordinators interview you and others; this is AFTER they already interviewed the woman complaining against you. A good Title IX office will open an investigation, will look at your emails, texts, snaps, and even your mental health records, if any. A bad Title IX office will just assume you are guilty. A good Title IX office will be open to discussion with your lawyer. A bad Title IX office will not.
What happens if respondents ignore the Notice of Allegations (NOA) for sexual misconduct? Ignoring the Title IX office in general and the Notice of Allegations specifically would more than likely lead to the disastrous result that the school will find you responsible for the charges that were filed against you as listed in the NOA itself, and if these are severe enough, you will be expelled.
Should student respondents tell their parents that their Title IX office gave them a sexual misconduct Notice of Allegations (NOA)? We generally expect to work with you and with your family as a team so yes we do want student respondents to sexual misconduct complaints to tell their parents, particularly because the parents provide emotional and financial support. However, in some cases, particularly with graduate or foreign students, we have found that our client’s parent’s interact with us very little, if at all.
Should student respondents tell their friends that they received a sexual misconduct Notice of Allegations (NOA)? This is tricky. The best approach is to lawyer up with us or someone else and then decide as part of your legal strategy if you should talk about the NOA with your friends.
B. The Range of Violations of College Sexual Misconduct Rules:
School Title IX administrators define when a student violates the school’s sexual rules in a very aggressive manner that makes it much more likely to get into trouble with the school than it is to get into trouble in the real world with the police or the courts. Students who receive a Notice of Allegations listing sexual misconduct violations face graver danger than if they were charged by a police officer or district attorney. The sexual misconduct violations in colleges and graduate schools in the US generally include the following scenarios:
What is Sexual Assault or Rape under school policy? More often than not, this happens to the heterosexual male who is accused of introducing without permission some part of his body into some part of the body of the woman who complained. Variations of touching and gender permutations are routine.
What is Sexual Touching under school policy? A step down from assault, this includes kissing, caressing and other behaviors that the recipient did not agree to, including, for example, wrestling during a date. This charge also generally comes up as a complaint from women against heterosexual males.
What is Sexual Exploitation under school policy? These charges happen when the woman complains that the man, for example, has taken naked photos of her without her knowledge, or has psychologically groomed her to comply with his desires against her will.
What is Stalking under school policy? To no one’s surprise a stalking charge can come from claims that the man creepily follows the woman around, aware that she does not want him to do so, and includes both physical surveillance as well as cyberbullying.
What is Retaliation under school policy? This only happens when the woman says that the man actually treated her worse, or in some other bad way, after she complained to the Title IX office. An easy to spot retaliation charge would consist of the man going and telling his friends that the woman is mentally ill after he learns that she complained (even if she is in fact mentally ill).
C. Permission or mindset that proves a sexual misconduct violation:
If you’re not a seasoned criminal or the son of a lawyer you will find this tricky. You can think of this in two ways: Some of the violations you are charged with happen automatically, whether you meant for them to happen, or not. The more serious ones do require the school to show that you meant for them to happen. Showing that you meant it, in an ideal world, requires the school to find evidence against you, most often in these categories:
What is Consent under school policy: Most sexual misconduct Notice of Allegations will list at least one violation that claims that the man did not obtain, or should have known that he had not obtained, the woman’s agreement to do whatever it is that the woman says happened. This may be the most controversial topic in the entire student sexual misconduct and Title IX world because of the huge variety of definitions of this concept. Student sexual misconduct consent questions involve lawyers for sure, and they tend to create “she said - he said” situations.
What is Incapacitation under school policy: Unlike consent, incapacitation has an empirical or data driven definition. Either the woman who complains was unable to make decisions because, for example, she was alcohol poisoned or roofied, or else she was not incapacitated, and thus could make decisions. An incapacitated woman is a woman who cannot and did not consent; a rare instance where both the criminal law of the United States and student sexual misconduct rules agree.
D. Best to Worst Possible Outcomes from Violating College Sexual Misconduct Rules:
What is a sexual misconduct related No Contact Order (NCO)? With a No Contact Order or NCO your school’s Title IX office or deans tell you that you cannot in any way--physical or on-line--contact the person who complained against you. Whether or not you agree with what the woman says, any violation of the NCO, that is, talking to the person you have just been told not to talk to, becomes an additional charge against you.
What is a sexual misconduct related Suspension from an NCAA-affiliated sports team? NCAA student athletes from D-I to D-III face particularly tough challenges while involved in sexual assault or sexual hostility misconduct investigations. The rules vary and each coach has wide discretion. You can and will be suspended from your team even at the start of a sexual misconduct allegation, whether or not the person complaining is on the team.
What is sexual misconduct related Removal from campus? Removal means that your school thinks you are a risk to the person who complained against you or to the school community, and perhaps even to yourself. Removal is extremely serious, it means you were escorted out of campus, and it requires immediate lawyer help.
What is sexual misconduct related Probation? Probation is one of the many ways the school can punish a student who is accused and found responsible of violating the sexual misconduct rules. Probation varies from school to school but often it has the benefit of not becoming a permanent disciplinary record--that is, if you meet the terms of the probation, with time, the record will disappear from your transcript.
What is sexual misconduct related Expulsion? Expulsion is at the worst end of the punishment spectrum. Expulsion means that at least one Title IX coordinator, one Title IX investigator, and one Title IX or Student Discipline hearing officer or panel, believe that you violated the school’s sexual assault rules. Expulsion for sexual misconduct means that you were found responsible for at least one of the charges that you received in the Notice of Allegations. Expulsion is severe and likely means that you cannot transfer to any school. Expulsion requires immediate legal help and appeal or litigation.
What is Informal Resolution? Most colleges and graduate schools in the US offer an alternative way to solve the conflict which is the Informal Resolution process. Informal Resolution varies from situation to situation but it works if your lawyer manages to negotiate an apology for, or a peace agreement with, the person who complained against you.
Is there a permanent disciplinary record on my transcript for violating the sexual misconduct rules? Students who successfully defend the charges in the Notice of Allegations will not have a permanent disciplinary record in their transcript and will not have to mention this situation in applications to graduate schools or for employment. In contrast, a student found responsible for sexual misconduct will have a permanent disciplinary record in their transcript, most likely in the “disciplinary transcript,” and will have to share that. Some exceptions exist--informal resolutions, for example, generally do not leave a permanent disciplinary record. Likewise, probation eventually fades from your transcript.
E. Who helps Students Involved in Sexual Misconduct Violations in College?
Keep in mind one of the most significant divisions in the sexual assault on college campus culture: Most often it is women who complain against men, and practically every one of them has talked to a lawyer before filing their complaint. In contrast most men receive Notices of Allegations and at best are told that they can get an “advisor.” This creates an uneven playing field: Men need lawyers just as much as women do. Each lawyer’s job is very different:
When the client is a man responding to a Notice of Allegations of sexual misconduct, what is his Title IX campus discipline lawyer’s job Lawyers like us who represent male students defending complaints of sexual assault or other sexual misconduct on campus focus on developing a strategy that saves the student’s career. We have strategic choices to make with you designed to make sure that if you disagree with what the Notice of Allegations charged you with, there is no reason for the school to not believe you. Likewise, we make sure that you understand what it is you did or did not do so that you can both manage your risk and heal through this experience.
When the client is a female filing a Notice of Allegations of sexual misconduct, what is her Title IX campus discipline lawyer’s job? Female students complaining of sexual assault or harassment on campus get free lawyers from public interest groups that fight the systemic sexual exploitation of women in the US. The same lawyer who is helping the woman who complained against you likely has other clients in horrendous situations (for example spousal abuse). This explains why so many men receive both school-based complaints under Title IX and Court-based restraining orders which were originally designed to protect abused spouses.
F. Top 5 Issues During a College Sexual Misconduct Investigation under Title IX:
What happens during the interview with the Title IX Investigator or Coordinator: Based on our clients’ experiences over 10 years of interviews for sexual misconduct investigations, the investigator tries to trap the student into admitting that he violated the school’s policy to make this an easy open and shut case that leads to the student’s expulsion. This risk makes it crucial to have a lawyer with you during every interview.
What is the role of student witnesses to the Sexual Misconduct Allegations Witnesses can and should describe everything they saw. For example, if witnesses saw how much the man and the woman drank, that is basic data that the school must collect. Your lawyer will investigate witnesses for both sides and design your defense based on that.
What is the use of texts, snaps, and other DMs? Most sexual assault or sexual misconduct cases happen between students who know each other. It is basic that you save any text, snap, or DM that you have. For example, these texts can show that you were friends with the woman who filed the Notice of Allegations. Similarly, if you suddenly delete all the chats you have with this woman--which is likely to happen if you are outraged that she filed this complaint--the school will then turn that against you and say you destroyed evidence showing you were guilty. The school will then assume you are guilty.
What goes into the College’s Sexual Misconduct Investigative Report under Title IX? What goes into the Investigation Report depends on how much work you and your lawyers put into the investigation. What should be in the report is every word, photograph, text, snap or anything else that shows you are innocent. What also goes in the report includes interviews with you, the woman who complained, witnesses, police reports, and sometimes expert opinions.
Why is it important to have your lawyer review the Investigation Report? Every school we have ever worked with gives you as the man responding to the sexual misconduct charges in the notice of allegations a chance to read, review and add documents to the school’s investigative report. In our experience schools routinely leave out crucial information that helps you prove your case and we, as your lawyers, fix that.
G. The College’s Sexual Misconduct Disciplinary Hearing:
What is the hearing for? Under Title IX the hearing is to have an independent group--that is generally school professors who were not part of the Title IX office investigation--decide if the school’s Title IX investigation actually found evidence that you, the man accused of sexual misconduct by your fellow classmate, violated the school’s Sexual Misconduct or Harassment Policy. So the hearing is not a normal trial. The hearing is tricky, difficult, capricious, long, and stressful.
What is the hearing like? Hearings are often by zoom. Title IX coordinators and investigators speak, then the complainant speaks, and then you, the man accused of violating the sexual misconduct policy speaks. You will be asked questions, including by your lawyer and the woman’s lawyer. And you will have a chance to ask questions from the woman which is very hard to do.
Do I need a lawyer for the hearing? Yes. Just as much as you need a doctor for surgery.
H. The College’s Finding of Responsibility for Violating the Sexual Misconduct Policy:
Can I appeal the finding that I am responsible for sexual assault or other sexual misconduct? Practically every school we have worked with allows you as the student found responsible for violating the sexual policy, to appeal that finding. Practically every school we have worked with has strict guidelines for that appeal that limit the likelihood that you can even file the appeal. One of the biggest reasons to have us as your lawyers from the start is that we create a record that then allows you to appeal if the worst outcome occurs.
Can I sue my school if the appeal fails: Yes. This is an expensive, difficult, and last case scenario. Yet, we have been involved in lawsuits representing men who claim that their school violated their rights to due process, or under Title IX, as well as their contract with the school, for over ten years now. The bottom line of these lawsuist is that your legal team has to show that one of the reasons that led to your expulsion is the fact that you are a man; that is to say, that you were discriminated against because of your gender.