Slate.com
12.30.16 | Christina Cauterucci
A Stanford University football player accused of sexual assault is set to play in Friday’s Sun Bowl, despite the fact that a majority of two different disciplinary panels at the school ruled that he committed the assault. The New York Times’ Joe Drape and Marc Tracy, who reviewed more than 100 pages of documents from Stanford’s proceedings against the accused assailant, were the first to report on the case.
The alleged victim, who was also a Stanford student at the time of the alleged incident, says she met the player at a frat party and he raped her after they returned to her room. The alleged perpetrator says the sex was consensual. The Times chose not to name either party.
In 2015, in accordance with Stanford’s procedure for sexual-assault adjudication at the time, five panelists (university students and employees) were chosen to consider the woman’s claims. Three of the five determined that, based on the given standard of preponderance of evidence, the man had committed the crime and should face university discipline. But Stanford required four of five panelists to return a verdict against the alleged perpetrator, a system that is friendlier to the accused than those of the vast majority of its peer universities.
